Galliford Try Holdings plc (LSE: GFRD) said on 15 July 2026 that it expects to report a sixth consecutive year of revenue, profit and cash growth for the year ended 30 June 2026, with full-year revenue up by circa 3 percent and adjusted profit before tax at the top end of analyst forecasts. The construction group reported a record order book of £4.3bn and said it began the new financial year with circa 90 percent of revenue secured.
What the update said
The statement is short and carries no results table. Alongside the revenue and profit lines it points to year-on-year margin progression towards a 2030 margin target of 4.0 percent, and to two investments in higher-margin specialist work: a pipe fabrication facility at Keighley and the acquisition of Nene Valley Fire, which the company said is performing ahead of expectations. Chief Executive Bill Hocking said the group expects to report the sixth consecutive year of growth at its full-year results in September.
The half-year statement of 4 March 2026 supplies the detail behind those claims. Revenue for the six months to 31 December 2025 rose 1.3 percent to £934.9m from £923.2m. Adjusted operating profit rose 22.0 percent to £21.6m from £17.7m, and the divisional adjusted operating margin reached 3.2 percent from 2.7 percent, a gain of 54 basis points against the 4.0 percent target. Adjusted profit before tax rose 20.5 percent to £24.7m from £20.5m, adjusted basic earnings per share to 18.6p from 15.7p, and the interim dividend 18.2 percent to 6.5p. The order book stood at £4.1bn against £3.9bn, with 98 percent of projected FY26 revenue and 80 percent of FY27 revenue secured. Nene Valley Fire & Acoustic Limited was acquired on 27 February 2026 for about £10m in a cash-funded deal the company expects to be margin accretive in the first year.
Cash and the balance sheet
Galliford Try reports cash on two bases, and the difference matters in contracting. Twelve-month average month-end cash was £189.9m at 31 December 2025, against £178.7m for the year to 30 June 2025 and £176.4m a year earlier. Net cash at the balance sheet date was £211.7m, against £237.6m at June 2025 and £210.0m at December 2024. PPP assets stood at £38.5m against £38.6m at 30 June 2025 and £40.2m a year earlier. The group has no debt or pension liabilities and its revolving credit facility remains undrawn.
Capital has also been returned. The third share buyback programme, of up to £10.0m, was launched on 17 September 2025, and by 19 January 2026 the group had bought 1,579,151 shares for £8.0m.
The order book and the frameworks behind it
The order book is built on long-term framework positions rather than one-off contracts. In its January trading statement the group listed a place on National Grid’s £9.0bn Major Works and Civils Framework, Lot 1 for converter civils and buildings within the HVDC programme, a place on a £3.0bn affordable homes framework across the East, South and London regions for The Hyde Group, and reappointment to the £1.0bn YORCivil Major Works 2 Framework. It also described the transition to the AMP8 water programme as progressing in line with expectations.
That concentration in public and regulated work sits against a weaker market for construction as a whole. Office for National Statistics figures show total construction output in Great Britain grew 0.3 percent in the second quarter of 2026 against the first, with new work up 0.4 percent and repair and maintenance up 0.2 percent, and five of nine sectors growing. Infrastructure new work made the main positive contribution at 1.9 percent. Monthly output fell 0.1 percent in June 2026, after falls of 0.8 percent in May and 0.1 percent in April. Total construction new orders fell 11.8 percent, or £1,232 million, in the second quarter against the first, mainly in private commercial and public other new work. Construction output prices rose 1.9 percent in the twelve months to June 2026.
Analysis: the forecast ratchet is the measurable part
Because Galliford Try publishes the analyst range it is judged against, the year can be read as a sequence of revised forecast ranges rather than a single claim about being at the top end. On 19 January 2026 the company-compiled range for the year to 30 June 2026 was revenue of £1,900m to £1,922m and adjusted profit before tax of £46.8m to £47.7m. A week later, at 26 January 2026, the range published with the half-year statement was revenue of £1,912m to £1,922m and adjusted profit before tax of £48.9m to £51.4m. By 16 July 2026, after the trading update, the consensus of the five covering analysts stood at revenue of £1,934.3m and adjusted profit before tax of £53.3m, against FY25 actuals of £1,875.2m and £45.0m. The profit expectation moved considerably further across those six months than the revenue expectation.
That is the shape of the story. Revenue growth of circa 3 percent is modest, and the half-year revenue increase of 1.3 percent was slower still. The profit progression comes from margin, not volume: 54 basis points of divisional adjusted operating margin in the first half, which converted 1.3 percent more revenue into 20.5 percent more adjusted profit before tax. On the 4.0 percent target for 2030, the first-half figure of 3.2 percent leaves the remaining distance to be earned over four more financial years.
The adjusted measure carries a definition worth holding on to. Galliford Try states that adjusted profit before tax excludes exceptional items and amortisation of acquired intangible assets. With Nene Valley Fire bought in February 2026 and a stated appetite for further acquisitions, that second exclusion grows in importance as the acquisition pipeline runs, and the September results will show the gap between the adjusted and statutory lines.
The order book reads better against the market than against itself. Moving from £4.1bn at the half year to a record £4.3bn at the year end is a modest step, but the ONS data show total construction new orders falling 11.8 percent in the same quarter, which suggests the growth came from framework positions in public and regulated sectors rather than from a rising tide. The visibility figures point the same way: 80 percent of FY27 revenue was secured at 31 December 2025, and circa 90 percent of the new financial year was secured at 30 June 2026, the same forward year measured six months later.
What the update does not establish is the cash outcome, since it gives no figures, and the group’s own reporting shows why the choice of measure matters: average month-end cash of £189.9m against a period-end figure of £211.7m at the same date, with the June 2025 period end at £237.6m. Average month-end cash is the harder number in a business that receives client payments unevenly. The September results, the statutory profit line alongside the adjusted one, and the full-year average month-end cash figure are where the sixth consecutive year of growth gets confirmed in the form the company has used to describe it.
