How to Scale a Construction Company to £1M+ Turnover
Most building companies in the UK stall somewhere between £250K and £500K a year. The owner is busy every day, the diary is full, and yet turnover and profit stay flat year after year. Getting past that point is not about working harder. It is about changing how the business prices, sells, finds work and delivers it.
Sviat Jay, founder of BizMentor, came to the UK with £6K of debt, started as a demolition labourer and grew his company Craftex from zero to around £1M turnover in three years. His company accounts show turnover going from £555,808 to £973,425 in a single year. This is the playbook he uses with his mentorship clients.
Why most construction companies get stuck at £250K–£500K
- The owner is the bottleneck. Pricing, sales, admin, materials and site visits all go through one person.
- Jobs are too small. When your average job is a few thousand pounds, you need hundreds of jobs a year to grow.
- Quotes have no profit in them. Overheads and project management are guessed or left out.
- There is no sales process. Quotes are emailed and nobody follows up.
- Work only comes from referrals, so there is no control over what comes in next month.
The numbers that decide whether you reach £1M
£1M a year is a maths problem before it is anything else. Four numbers matter: average job value, close rate, margin and the number of quotes you send.
- At an average job of £2,700, £1M means about 370 jobs a year, more than one every working day.
- At an average job of £25,000, it means 40 jobs a year, around 3–4 a month.
- If you win 1 in 3 quotes, those 40 jobs need about 11 quotes a month.
That is why the fastest route to £1M is bigger projects at a proper margin, not more small jobs. Adam and Ali’s average job was £2,700 when they started. Within four months they were signing £12K, £30K and £49K jobs, then a £528K project. See how they did it.
Step 1: Price for profit
Build every quote as a proper estimate: costs, a set markup, project management charged as a line (Adam now charges £400 a day), and profit as a fixed line rather than whatever is left at the end. Done properly, margins of 30–45% are realistic on the right work; Adam and Ali signed jobs at around 40% and 46%. Read more on how to charge more without losing clients.
Step 2: Look like a company, not a tradesman
Bigger clients judge you before they speak to you. Put together a capability statement with your best projects and their values, show your team, and get a website with real case studies. If you look like a maintenance company, you will be offered maintenance jobs.
Step 3: Build a sales process
Sviat’s 4-step closing strategy: a discovery call before any site visit; a site visit where you learn the client’s situation, who decides and who else is pricing; a quote built to their exact requirements; and the quote presented live, in person or on Zoom, aiming for a deposit on the call. Then a phone call every week until there is a clear yes or no.
Dmitriy, a plumber with 20+ years on the tools, won his first £50K commercial project after changing how he sells. Read his story.
Step 4: Build a pipeline you control
Stop waiting for the phone to ring. Call every past client and contact, approach architects, interior designers and developers, and look at public tenders that match your past projects. Full guide: how to get construction clients in the UK.
Step 5: Get off the tools
You cannot sell £1M of work a year while you are on site every day. Subcontract delivery, hire the trades or project manager you need, and give yourself time for sales. Adam cut his admin from 4–5 hours a day to 30 minutes and spent 6 hours a day on sales; their £49K and £12K jobs were fully subcontracted. Oleg, a 19-year-old taper, built a team of 10+ people and went from £2K to £7K a month profit in two months. Read Oleg’s story.
Step 6: Track your numbers every week
Every week, look at quotes sent, quotes won, value won, average job value and margin. You can’t grow what you don’t measure, and the numbers tell you which of the steps above to work on next.
For the bigger picture, vision, systems and processes, read how to scale a small construction business into a large company.
FAQ
How long does it take to scale a construction company to £1M?
It depends on where you start. Sviat took Craftex from zero to around £1M in three years. Owners who already turn over £300K–£500K can move faster once pricing, sales and pipeline are fixed.
Do I need a bigger team before I grow?
Not first. Fix pricing and sales first so the extra work is profitable, then hire or subcontract to deliver it.
What profit margin should a construction company make?
It depends on the type of work, but if there is no profit line in your quotes, there is usually little profit at the end of the year. Price profit in as a fixed line on every job.
Stuck at the same turnover? Apply for a call with Sviat’s team. We’ll look at your numbers and show you which step to fix first.
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The Business That Runs Without You
The steps to take your construction company from owner-on-the-tools to a team that runs the jobs.
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