The board said it continues to expect the group’s 2023 profit from operations from its earnings-based businesses to be broadly in line with 2022.

Released ahead of today’s Annual General Meeting, the trading update added that the group’s order book was £17.0 billion (December 2022: £17.4bn). New projects added to the order book in the first quarter of 2023 include a £297 million seven-year East Sussex road maintenance contract, a US$242m design-build highways contract in North Carolina and US$230m of data centres in the US Northwest.

Over the first three months of 2023, the average monthly closing net cash balance was £740m (FY 2022 average: £804m, 2022 closing: £815m) driven by an expected working capital outflow of around £100m and share buybacks.

The board said it continues to expect a full year working capital outflow of between £75m and £125m for 2023 and for the £150m share buyback to be completed by the end of the year, with £75m completed to date.