A FTSE 100 group of life-saving technology companies headquartered in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, whose safety, environmental and healthcare businesses make sensors, detectors and instruments.
Halma is a group of specialist technology companies, headquartered in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. Rather than being one big factory, it is a family of almost 50 separate companies, each making its own products. Halma describes them as life-saving technology in three areas: safety, environmental and healthcare. Examples named on Wikipedia include Apollo and Ampac (fire detection), Palintest (water testing), Ocean Optics (light sensing) and Keeler (eye-care equipment). The products tackle issues such as air quality, safe water and preventable blindness.
The group's history is unusual. It began in 1894 as The Nahalma Tea Estate Company in Sri Lanka, switched to rubber in 1937 and was renamed Halma Investments in 1956 as it turned into an industrial holding company. It became Halma Limited in 1973 and Halma plc in 1981. A turning point came in 1984, when it bought Apollo Fire Detectors, then the UK's largest smoke detector maker. Since then it has bought and grown businesses in the three sectors, including Ampac and several healthcare firms around 2019 and 2020.
Halma's purpose, in its own words, is to "grow a safer, cleaner, healthier future for everyone, every day". It describes a model in which each company knows its own people, markets and customers best, so day-to-day decisions stay close to the work. Its sustainability work has three pillars: growing sustainable offerings, supporting its people and communities, and reducing its environmental footprint. We did not find a separate written list of values; the Halma site points to a "Halma's DNA" page that we could not read.
The group says it employs more than 9,000 people across almost 50 companies in the UK, mainland Europe, the US, Asia Pacific and Latin America, though Wikipedia gives about 8,000, so treat the number as approximate. Its parent company, Halma plc, is registered in England and has its head office in Amersham. The pages we read confirm UK operations but do not list individual UK company sites, so check each Halma company's own website for its address.
Because the group is a collection of companies, the work is varied: engineers designing sensors and detectors, scientists in laboratories, production teams, sales and service staff, and finance and strategy specialists at the centre. Halma asks for engineering, science and technical talent and says people can see the work of several of its companies. Its "Life at Halma" page, which we could not read, is the place to look for staff stories, and its individual companies each post their own roles.
Website: www.halma.com
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