Laing O'Rourke

A privately owned UK engineering and construction company that uses digital design and factory manufacturing to build infrastructure and buildings.

About Laing O'Rourke

Laing O'Rourke describes itself as the UK's largest privately owned engineering and construction company. It builds both infrastructure and buildings, in the UK, the Middle East and Australia, and it does a lot of the work itself rather than hiring other firms, using its own specialist in-house businesses. Its approach is to combine digital design with advanced manufacturing: parts of a building are made in a factory under controlled conditions and then brought to site and put together. That is sometimes called modern methods of construction,.

The company's Centre of Excellence for Modern Construction opened in 2009, and the company says more than £200m has been invested in it since. It is described as Europe's most advanced facility for manufactured concrete products, and the company says it has supplied components to more than 300 UK buildings and infrastructure projects. The pages we read did not name individual projects, so we do not list any here, and we did not find a founding date or founder's name in them.

The company states its purpose as "push the boundaries of what's possible in service of humanity". Its three values are care, integrity and courage. Its recruitment pages say it is recognised as a leader in health, safety and wellbeing, and that it runs diversity and inclusion commitments. These are company claims, quoted from a student-recruitment profile, and we have not checked them against other sources.

Its UK factories are in the East and West Midlands. We could not confirm from the pages we read where its head office is or where its other UK offices and project bases are, so we have left that out rather than guess. The company says it works with universities including Exeter, Warwick and Salford, and a separate search result showed a Worksop job location and a 2026 project coordinator vacancy, though we did not read them closely. A total headcount was not given in the pages we read.

Because Laing O'Rourke designs, makes and builds, it employs a wide range of people. These include structural and civil engineers, digital and design engineers who build 3D models of a project before anything is made, factory production and manufacturing engineers, site managers, quantity surveyors, planners and health and safety specialists, as well as finance, commercial and human resources staff. The company also advertises an industry-leading parental leave policy and professional development programmes at every career stage. If you like design, technology, maths or making things, this is a company where those meet. Its website lists current roles.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Building parts in a factory and assembling them on site.', 'title': 'Design for manufacture and assembly'}
• {'desc': 'Delivering transport, energy and building projects in the UK and overseas.', 'title': 'Infrastructure and buildings'}
• {'desc': 'Using digital models to design and plan projects before construction.', 'title': 'Digital engineering'}

Key facts

• Describes itself as the UK's largest privately owned engineering and construction company
• Centre of Excellence for Modern Construction opened in 2009, with over £200m invested since (company claim)
• Components supplied to more than 300 UK buildings and infrastructure projects (company claim)
• UK factories in the East and West Midlands

Website: www.laingorourke.com