Every contractor knows that construction, at its core, is a relationship-based business. These relationships dictate which subcontractors builders work with and, perhaps more importantly, what customers can award them jobs.
For Balfour Beatty, its emphasis on longstanding relationships and core markets has propelled its first-half results, company executives shared during the firm’s first half 2026 earnings call on Tuesday.
This, in particular, has helped the firm turn around its U.S. construction business , which has faced hurdles in the past. For the first half of the year, the U.S. arm delivered a profit from operations of 22 million pounds ($29.7 million), compared to an 11 million-pound loss during H1 2025.
“It's been a great start to the year for U.S. construction. Our revenue is up 19% on the half year 2025,” Philip Hoare, Balfour Beatty chief executive, said during the call. “And we've really begun to do something that I think is critically important in that market, which is about leveraging the great capability we have in one area or with one customer and taking that and spreading it across the U.S.”
As an example, Hoare discussed the company’s collaboration with Wells Fargo, with which Balfour Beatty has maintained a 20-year working relationship. The contractor now enjoys what Hoare called a “national framework” with the bank, where Balfour Beatty is delivering work for Wells Fargo in each of its geographical areas.
Problems plaguing the U.S. arm of its business are also improving. The contractor has endured design issues on a Texas highway project that led to rework. Now, however, the company expects that project to soon reach closeout, said Myles Westcott, Balfour Beatty’s CFO.
Aviation and data centers
For the U.S. arm, Hoare called out two markets fueling progress — data centers and aviation jobs.
“Data centers, I mean, you can't pick up anything these days and not read about data centers,” Hoare said.
Balfour Beatty is following through on a commitment it made during its FY 2025 earnings in March to seek out more data center work in the U.S. Hoare highlighted $350 million in data center wins in the U.S. and secured $1 billion in work that’s been awarded but not contracted through H1.
The sector’s performance is so massive that it is masking a broader weakness in the U.S. construction industry, according to Associated Builders and Contractors. The 12% of ABC member contractors with data center work on their books reported 11.4 months of backlog in July, compared with the 88% without data center work, which reported 7.5 months of backlog.
Nonetheless, Balfour Beatty sees opportunity outside of data centers as well. The firm is bullish on what the aviation sector can provide in the U.S. The market is projected to provide $140 billion worth of construction between now and 2029, per Hoare.
Indeed, the Federal Aviation Administration recently highlighted $870 million in airport infrastructure grants.
“We have a great track record delivering across seven airports in the U.S. And in the first half of the year, we won another significant mandate with Raleigh-Durham Airport for $361 million,” Hoare said. “And so we're now focused on that as a vertical within the U.S. market.”
The numbers
On the half-year, Balfour Beatty reported approximately 5.6 billion pounds ($7.6 billion) of revenue, an 8% increase year over year from H1 2025’s 5.2 billion pounds. The company’s backlog, which it refers to as its “order book,” rose to 22.9 billion pounds, an increase of 17.4% from H1 2025’s 19.5 billion pounds.
Despite the revenue gains, the company reported an approximately 2.3% dip in pre-tax profit to 129 million pounds, down from H1 2025’s 132 million pounds.
Overall, Balfour Beatty moved to increase its full-year guidance, including its average net cash projection. It raised that metric by 200 million pounds to the range of 1.5 billion pounds to 1.7 billion pounds following its first half results, according to the firm.
“And of course, I'm really positive about the momentum that we carry into the future,” Hoare said during the call.
