At Castle, our footprint across the North East, Yorkshire and Scotland, continues to grow at a rapid rate.

The last two years have been incredible in terms of turnover and staff growth and we have made key, strategic moves, that will drive us forward, at pace.

One of the major decisions was to widen our offering by moving into a Principal Contractor role, which sits perfectly alongside our exemplar and established Tier 1 expertise in MEP.

It has been a fantastic move and I will touch on this a little further later in this article.

From a business continuity viewpoint, 2023 saw the completion of a scheduled company re-structure, management buyout and confirmation of our board of directors.

This comprises of myself as managing director, co-founder, CEO, Tony Lister and technical director, Simon Groom.

As existing board members, we have been responsible for the strategic direction of Castle for many years and it is our aim to carefully build on all that has been achieved to date.

To do that, we need great people to join us on the journey.

So, we made a number of internal promotions at board level. They include Leanne Robinson as finance director, Andrew Heron, commercial director, Ben Fawcett, procurement director, Richard Farrell as divisional director, MEP and Craig Muldoon, divisional director, Build.

We are brilliantly supported by a senior management team, the vast majority of whom have been in place for many years, so ensuring stability, consistency and certainty.

With that great team all in place, we are primed for growth.

We offer everything from design services, planning applications, cost planning and feasibility, Principal Contracting including in-house, tier 1, MEP subcontracting, providing a truly holistic and turnkey solution. We cover a range of projects including new builds, specialist fit outs and full refurbishments across a multitude of sectors. While we have the in-house ability to provide multiple individual offerings, these are all united under one company and all share the same common values…We are one; we are Castle.

Reflecting our new, strategic direction, the board instigated a brand refresh during 2023, which saw a rename from Castle Building Services to Castle, partly reflecting the fact we are now a far more diverse business model.

We are set to increase our turnover substantially in the next 24 months, clear evidence we are delivering, in partnership with our clients, partners and supply chain partners, a consistently high-quality product.

With a current headcount of 180, we continue to hire to strengthen our market-leading MEP Division which, during 2023, was complemented by our rapidly emerging Principal Contractor role across northern England and Scotland. 

Our successful transition into a Principal Contractor role, has accelerated rapidly with the appointment of Craig Muldoon as divisional director of Build. It is anticipated this part of the business will match the turnover of MEP within the next two to three years.

Recognising a gap in the North East market, we aim to be the go-to contractor for professional, technical, financially stable and experienced project delivery, offering a full turnkey solution.  

We demonstrated our ability in the market last year with outstanding projects. Our appointment to the state-of-the-art Pragmatic Park electronics facility in Durham, the refurbishment of both St George’s House and Maingate by UK Land Estates, located on Gateshead’s Team Valley Trading Estate and our appointment by Northumberland Estates as Principal Contractor to a new retail and trade park in the Tees Valley.

These projects fall between the scope of smaller contractors and the focus of Tier 1 and 2 contractors and that is what makes our business model very different.

We will specialise in low volume, high value projects that come with their own set of unique challenges, such as complicated ground conditions, working in a live environment, technically challenged services or tight delivery timescales.

The merging of principle contracting and MEP expertise, along with our company wide use of technology and our “BIM approach”, has created a company with a very unique offering.