Willmott Dixon – How a £1 job turned into a £3bn orderbook

In 1852, bricklayers made 5 pennies an hour, as one John Willmott knew, founder of one of the UK’s biggest private contractors Willmott Dixon. John, the unflappable labourer that he was, would often describe making the 33 kilometre walk from his home town to site where he worked, staying the week, and walking back the following weekend. 

It’s that kind of grit and determination that has led to the company’s continued success, 172 years on. Let’s look back at the rise of  Willmott Dixon and how they got to where they are today.

It’s difficult to imagine how a company, which has recently secured an order book of £3 billion and generated revenue of more than a billion, could ever have agreed to a job worth £1.

In 1852, bricklayers made 5 pennies an hour, as one John Willmott knew, working for a local builder called Revills on a large estate in Wimpole, Cambridgeshire.

The young journeyman bricklayer lived in the small village of Bassingbourn, 20 kilometres southwest of Cambridge.

The estate was owned by British naval commander and Conservative politician the 4th Earl of Hardwick and needed a new well to be dug. Willmott, having been given the idea by the estate’s manager, decided to strike out on his own and arrange the job himself.

The well only needed to be dug 12 feet deep and bricked up 4 inches as water in Cambridgeshire is close to the surface, which once planned Willmott shook on £1 for the job.

In today’s money the dig would have been worth the respectable sum of £117.31. Not bad for a first job. 

That’s when Willmott embarked on his company John Willmott, which more than 150 years later has gone on to be one of the UK’s biggest private contractors, Willmott Dixon.

The next two decades were a period of steady growth for the still small company, moving to a larger premises with space for a joinery shop in 1953 and training his seven sons as either carpenters or bricklayers.

Each son was eventually taken into the business, with the company’s early jobs comprising local farm buildings.

John, the calcified, unflappable labourer that many of his generation were, would travel to work on foot, often making the 33 kilometre walk from Bassingbourn to Ware, staying the week, and walking back the following weekend. 

In 1878, his son William John Willmott moved to Hitchin, where he purchased a conjoining business which would become known as John Willmott & Sons.

The sons, some working out of different branches, continued to work in conjunction with their father, carried on working until his retirement in 1896 at the age of 66.

Three years later, the family started what would go on to be its tradition of training sons within the business when William John Willmott’s son, William George, started a new apprenticeship.

By 1924, the business separated into John Willmott & Sons (Hitchin) Ltd and John Willmott & Sons (Hornsey) Ltd, and in the following year completed its first housing development, Manor Estate, in Hitchin.

With several contracts under its belt, building and restoring buildings in towns like Littlehampton and Letchworth Garden City, the company then became totally entrenched in contracts for the Air Ministry during the second world war.

This only mushroomed after the conflict, moving on to bomb damage repair work and the construction of badly needed new housing for local councils, helping to rebuild the country as many firms had done from the devastation of war.

Then, in 1952 the company commemorated its 100th anniversary with a dinner and concert for its employees.

Over that 100 period, the construction landscape had changed immensely. Gone were the days of stoic 33 kilometre walks to work — technology had given rise to new means of transport, machinery had been developed to use on site, and with it saw a widening portfolio for the company.

In 1957, Harold Sam Willmott took over from William George Willmott as Chairman, then in 1965 the housing company John Willmott Developments Ltd was formed and traded for over 10 years.

The once separated John Willmott & Sons (Hornsey) Ltd and John Willmott & Sons (Hitchin), reunited in 1969 under parent company John Willmott Construction Ltd, one year before group turnover increased to £2.2 million (£31 million today).

In 1971, The company moved its head office to the site of a church where the Willmotts were active during the early 1900s, and changed its name to John Willmott Holdings Ltd.

The contractor continued to make significant moves in the 70s, establishing its London presence with the acquisition of A.E. Symes Limited, and completed a contract to refurbish the Royal Institution of the Chartered Surveyors (RICS) headquarters in London which was opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1978.

Ian Dixon, who had joined the company in 1967 as general manager, was quickly appointed a director and soon managing director. So significant were his contributions to the company’s growth that by 1987, the name of the Group was changed to Willmott Dixon Limited.

From there, Willmott Dixon Housing would complete the Blackbird Leys project in Oxford, recognised at the time as the country’s largest social housing project.

Then in 2005 Rick Willmott, the fifth generation of Willmotts, was appointed Group Chief Executive, with then CEO Colin Enticknap becoming Group Chairman. 

In the intervening years since, Wilmott Dixon became a carbon neutral business, won a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for sustainable development and this year reported a record £3 billion orderbook.

With chief executive Graham Dundas now at the helm the company has said it is confident of a return to profit in 2024 after last year’s financial performance was impacted by supply chain insolvencies. 

The contractor’s Construction business saw turnover in 2023 of £1.043 billion ahead of £1.014 billion the year prior, while its Interiors division reported £130.9 million, down from £133.4 million.

Dundas said: “We are delighted by the strong start that Willmott Dixon has made to 2024.

“With inflation easing and a strong pipeline of high-quality work, our resilient balance sheet and a healthy mix of long-term revenues means that Willmott Dixon is well-positioned to prosper in 2024.”

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