A winnable year with a clock on it. Two months are closed and banked £73,146 of gross profit, the book runs strongly to the end of December, and the committed position (£320,092 of GP) is well up on last month's forecast. Left alone the year lands at (£385,521), but that is the do nothing floor: the engineers are paid through five empty months from January whether or not work is won, and that idle payroll is the cost of the empty months, not a bill new work has to settle. Break even needs a further £249,908 of gross profit, roughly two jobs the size of St George's Park, and because a project runs six to seven months it has to be signed in the next two to three months to bill inside the year. The job is to sign the right work, early.
Monthly revenue and gross profit
June 2026 – May 2027 · June and July actual, August onward forecast
Revenue runs healthily through to the end of December, carried by 6 Staveley Road, St George's Park and Tetley. From January there is no project work booked, so gross profit drops to the bare engineer payroll and the line goes negative. This is also why the quarter view alone misleads: December is a genuinely strong month but it sits in Q3 with two empty months either side. Section 4 sets out where that revenue comes from month by month and when the team runs out of work.
Against a break even pace of about £95,000 over two months, so roughly £22,000 behind the line. That shortfall folds into the rest of the year rather than being a hole to claw back.
The two closed months
Revenue held up, £171,468 in June and £155,943 in July. The softness was margin, not volume: gross margin came in at 22 to 23% against the low thirties the projects are meant to run at, with engineer payroll running about £2,200 a month above plan. Once the £10,760 monthly finance charge is applied on top, both close as net losses, about (£9,900) in June and (£16,500) in July, the latter carrying the £7,500 Warmfloors grant that is stripped out and a one off engineer bonus.
Draft note: June and July are official actuals; the July engineer payroll and the treatment of the St John Fisher deposit are still to be confirmed and may move these figures slightly.
| Q1 Jun–Aug | Q2 Sep–Nov | Q3 Dec–Feb | Q4 Mar–May | FY | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | £571,426 | £620,364 | £192,523 | £0 | £1,384,313 |
| Direct costs | (£435,658) | (£474,263) | (£222,629) | (£102,495) | (£1,235,046) |
| Gross profit | £135,768 | £146,101 | (£30,107) | (£102,495) | £149,267 |
| Overheads | (£109,657) | (£99,659) | (£98,227) | (£98,125) | (£405,668) |
| Finance | (£32,280) | (£32,280) | (£32,280) | (£32,280) | (£129,120) |
| Net result | (£6,169) | £14,162 | (£160,613) | (£232,900) | (£385,521) |
Q3 reads as a loss but contains December, the year's strong final trading month, alongside two empty months. The monthly view below carries the true shape.
| Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | FY | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | £171,468 | £155,943 | £244,015 | £194,432 | £208,533 | £217,399 | £192,523 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £0 | £1,384,313 |
| Direct costs | (£133,381) | (£120,885) | (£181,393) | (£151,393) | (£159,571) | (£163,299) | (£154,299) | (£34,165) | (£34,165) | (£34,165) | (£34,165) | (£34,165) | (£1,235,046) |
| Gross profit | £38,088 | £35,058 | £62,622 | £43,039 | £48,962 | £54,100 | £38,223 | (£34,165) | (£34,165) | (£34,165) | (£34,165) | (£34,165) | £149,267 |
| Overheads | (£34,070) | (£40,842) | (£34,744) | (£33,646) | (£32,965) | (£33,048) | (£32,990) | (£32,618) | (£32,618) | (£32,581) | (£32,926) | (£32,618) | (£405,668) |
| Finance | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£10,760) | (£129,120) |
| Net result | (£6,742) | (£16,544) | £17,117 | (£1,367) | £5,238 | £10,292 | (£5,527) | (£77,543) | (£77,543) | (£77,506) | (£77,851) | (£77,543) | (£385,521) |
| Project | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tetley Hall – Block E | £76,952 | £76,952 | £16,011 | £1,877 | – | – | – | – | – | – | £171,792 |
| 6 Staveley Road | £94,976 | £61,642 | £61,642 | £61,642 | £61,642 | – | – | – | – | – | £341,544 |
| St George's Park | – | – | £130,880 | £130,880 | £130,880 | – | – | – | – | – | £392,640 |
| Thorner – Meadow Croft | £28,088 | £28,088 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | £56,176 |
| St John Fisher | £44,000 | £4,750 | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | £48,750 |
| Mill House | – | £23,000 | – | £23,000 | – | – | – | – | – | – | £46,000 |
| Total revenue | £244,016 | £194,432 | £208,533 | £217,399 | £192,522 | – | – | – | – | – | £1,056,902 |
| Labour days used | 188 | 179 | 142 | 126.5 | 122 | – | – | – | – | – | 757.5 |
| Team capacity | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 2,270 |
| Days spare | 39 | 48 | 85 | 100.5 | 105 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 227 | 1512.5 |
| Utilisation | 83% | 79% | 63% | 56% | 54% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 33% |
The forward book fills the team to 83% in August and runs down from there, and from January every one of the 227 days a month sits idle. Across the forward window only 758 of the 2,270 available days carry work, so 1,512 days are spare between now and May. That spare capacity is what the new work in the next two sections has to fill.
Draft note: Mill House bills revenue with no engineer days recorded yet, so days used slightly understate in September and November. To be reconciled.
The committed book banks £320,092 of gross profit. Break even for the year is £570,000, covering overheads and finance, and the £240,000 profit target sits beyond it at £810,000. This is gross profit net of the engineers who do the work, because their cost sits inside each job, so every pound of it is contribution.
What £249,908 looks like as work: roughly two projects the size of St George's Park, or the two big jobs plus a small works top up. Against it we have two St George's scale prospects in view and variations being discussed on St George's Park that would lift its committed value directly and shave the gap without winning anything new.
The clock is delivery, not price. A project runs six to seven months, so to bill any of this £249,908 inside the financial year the work has to be signed in roughly the next two to three months. Win it later and less of it delivers before May.
Draft note: pipeline names and weightings to be dropped in here, set directly against the £249,908 requirement, once confirmed.
Taken in the round rather than job by job: the team has about 227 engineer days a month. Across the seven confirmed months to December the book produces £320,092 of gross profit, which is £201 for every available day. That is the run rate the empty months have to match.
Break even asks the empty months to earn £220 a day, only a little above the £201 the confirmed work is already running at, so it is well within reach. The profit target asks about £432 a day, close to double, which is why it takes better value work and not simply more of it.
Draft note: this uses the 227 day monthly average across the whole team. Which trades are free matters for what work can fill the days, HVAC being the tightest, so we may want a trade view alongside it later.
Overheads are running broadly to budget once timing is normalised: the June accountancy spike is year end books, the high June distributions are a dividend and a wage that both belong to May, and July's overspend is a one off engineer bonus. The break even hurdle carries about £5,000 a month of deliberate contingency (£47,500 against a real run rate near £42,500), but higher fuel is taking £900 of that, and a possible Vitality health continuation would take more. Worth keeping that cushion visible so it is not mistaken for slack.
Protect the delivered margin on Staveley, St George's Park and Tetley. The front half runs at a real operating profit and it funds the rest of the year.
Sign the next big job for an autumn start. A project takes six to seven months, so work billing inside this year has to be won in the next few months, not later.
Firm up the St George's variations, they add committed gross profit without winning anything new.
Five empty months carrying about £34,000 a month of payroll are what turn a solid first half into the (£385,521) floor. Filling them is the whole task.
Chase value for the team's time, not turnover. The empty months only need to earn £220 a day of gross profit to break even, barely above the £201 the confirmed work already runs at, so the priority is filling them with sound value work rather than chasing volume.
Set an end of October review. A project runs six to seven months, so if the slots are not filling by then, decide while there is still time to bill inside the year.