Atkins still has new jobs on offer - Keith Clarke

Atkins continues to offer new jobs even after taking on more than 1,000 new employees in the first half of the year.

Keith Clarke, chief executive, reports: “We are advertising because we have still got job places, though it is now more cautiously than before. It is certainly easier to find people now.

“Atkins is seen as a safe haven and the fact that we have cash in the bank is a further plus for us.

“We started actively searching for 1,000 more people a while ago when we saw that there was more work being offered which we thought we could win if only we had the additional skills.”

As a result of that surge of growth, Atkins’ total headcount has jumped to over 18,300.

Half the 1,000 new posts were to handle extra work in the Middle East, the balance to cater for potential projects in the UK.”

Having decided to take the plunge, in what was something of a chicken-and-egg scenario, Clarke says that the group’s optimism proved well placed as, subsequently, much of what was ‘potential work’ was actually won.

“We said last year that Atkins was resource-constrained rather than market-constrained,” he recalls, “and in places that is still true though some bits of the market are slowing.”

What is the picture going forward?

“Some clients are seeking to accelerate their programmes,” says Clarke, “while some say they are re-profiling – they never use the word delay. That leaves a few more who report that they are heavily re-profiling – they never cancel.

“We’ve been seeing this greater fluidity over plans for the past 18 months.

“In Dubai, for example, some of the more exciting (in other words challenging) projects are being delayed.

“Different sectors are reacting differently. We still see clients suddenly wanting work and it’s harder to predict the market’s overall needs.”

It is government clients, both national and regional, who are calling to see if things can be speeded up.

‘Do you have the capacity to bring things forward?’ is a question that has been posed many times to Atkins in the past fortnight as the Alastair Darling stimulus kicks in.

However Clarke expresses caution over the achievability of Darling’s push for glory.

The public sector finds it difficult to get work to market already, he observes, noting the difficulty government departments already have in spending the full funding allocation that already sits on their plates.

Even so, Atkins has taken a view on the achievable acceleration that the Darling effect will produce and plans have been hatched in order to have the capability of covering the anticipated upswing.