What happened

Van Elle has closed its depot in Thurrock, Essex, Construction News reported on 6 November, as accounts for the year to 30 April 2026, filed the day before, showed its General Piling division swinging to an underlying operating loss of £2m, against a £600,000 profit the year before.

The loss came despite General Piling's revenue rising 11.5% to £51.3m, boosted by a £10m project for Sheffield Forgemasters. Van Elle pointed to delayed approvals on residential schemes, particularly in London, together with competitive pricing that squeezed margins across the division. The Thurrock depot had been tied to Rock & Alluvium, a specialist business Van Elle bought in 2023.

At group level, continuing operations swung to a pre-tax loss of £333,000, from a £4.6m profit the year before. Including the now-sold Canadian arm, which it exited in December 2025, the total after-tax loss for the year was £3.7m, against a £1.8m profit previously. Cash fell from £7.2m to £4.5m, which the company linked to continued investment in piling rigs.

The accounts cover the year before Strabag UK completed its £58.8m takeover of Van Elle in June 2026, after shareholders backed the deal with more than 99% support. Van Elle now trades as part of Strabag UK's foundations business.

Why it matters

Piling and ground engineering firms are usually among the first trades on site, which makes them a useful early-warning indicator for the wider market. A division growing revenue by more than a tenth while its profit falls into a £2m loss is not a volume problem, it's a pricing and delay problem: London residential schemes still waiting on planning and Building Safety Regulator sign-off are tying up capacity that should be earning a margin, while competition for the work that is live keeps prices down.

That Van Elle needed a buyer with the balance sheet of an Austrian-owned, multi-billion-turnover group to absorb a year like this says something about how thin margins have become across the ground engineering supply chain, even for an established, 40-year-old specialist.

What it means for careers and hiring

For site-based staff in the Thames Gateway and Essex corridor, a depot closure usually means roles are redeployed rather than simply cut, especially now Van Elle sits inside a much larger parent with other UK sites. Worth asking directly, if you're affected or recruiting into the area, whether Strabag UK's wider foundations business has capacity nearby.

For commercial and estimating staff in piling and ground engineering more broadly, this is a reminder to price delay risk into tenders rather than assume rising revenue will protect margin on its own. And for anyone weighing a move, a standalone AIM-listed piling firm and a piling business backed by a multi-billion European contractor are different propositions: the latter may open routes into bigger civils and infrastructure frameworks that scale alone struggled to reach.