Find out how Linaker remains one of the building maintenance sector’s fastest growing businesses
Founded in 1993, Linaker is an independent business defined by care, reliability and trust. Maintaining the values of its Chairman, Bill Harrison, the company has been a prominent specialist building maintenance partner in the UK for over 30 years, leading at the fore with its extensive expertise and vast scope of capabilities. The business operates across the entirety of the UK and the Republic of Ireland (RoI), self-delivering over 90 percent of its core services across a wide range of sectors, including mechanical, electrical, gas, AC, compliance, technical, fire, and drainage.
With over three decades of experience, Linaker upholds a stellar reputation. The company’s overarching purpose is to create a positive impact on its team, clients, suppliers, and the world, as demonstrated by its happy workforce, robust partnerships and substantial quota of return clients. Linaker’s Managing Director, Claire Curran, exemplifies the core values of the business. Having been appointed to the role in 2018, Claire has led the business on a tremendous growth trajectory, achieving 40 per cent growth in each over the past three years and solidifying Linaker’s position as the fastest growing company in the sector by a significant margin.
In light of Linaker’s ongoing success, Construction & Civil Engineering sat down with Claire to discuss the factors that have contributed to the rapid growth of the business and how it continues to have a positive impact on its team, clients and suppliers alike.
“Linaker provides strategic maintenance partnerships to managing agents and end user clients across the UK and RoI, servicing more than 1800 sites for pre-planned maintenance where the business consistently achieves 97 per cent and above on statutory and mandatory compliance,” Claire begins. “The core services are self-delivered by our strong engineering base, supported by our extended family of specialist sub-contractors. We use best in class, high security systems that we develop and integrate ourselves with our in-house, transformational IT and software development teams. This gives us industry-leading bespoke client solutions via APIs and allows us to interrogate data to drive the business forward with the use of power BI and AI.”
Collaborative approach
Linaker’s dedication to engineering excellence and providing fully integrated solutions has landed the business a multitude of exciting contracts and partnerships, one of which being with the much-loved fast food giant, KFC.
“KFC is an amazing client,” Claire shares. “Their culture really is outstanding. They are open, strategically, to share challenges and goals. This means we are in a partnership together for the greater good. We provide full building services for the entirety of their equity portfolio in the UK and RoI, comprising around 300 sites. Our commercial model gives them absolute transparency and our systems have been developed alongside them to provide meaningful data. We are constantly evolving with exciting enhancements happening consistently.”
Passionate to provide the best solutions tailored to its clients’ needs, Linaker embodies a truly collaborative approach, from repeat clients to new partnerships. The company places a significant emphasis on quality and communication, which remains consistent throughout all of its locations across the country.
“All of our large clients have worked with us in true partnership style with each of them giving us historical problems to solve,” Claire explains. “This collaborative approach and investment has created a suite of Linaker bespoke innovations, which grows with every client, from auto triage (a piece of software which can provide a different SLA and KPI to each asset dependent on location, criticality and fault) to individual real time site budget management. These are just two of the many innovations we have implemented. It’s this approach to innovation that has allowed us to mobilise 27 contracts this year with an average of 9.8 net promoter score.
“Alongside our fantastic clients we have seen our partnership with our CAFM provider Joblogic prosper as we develop with them to create bespoke software environments for our clients. We have also rolled out ‘Subhub’ with our extended family of sub-contractor partners, which allows us to provide our clients with the same data, information and certification at the same pace from our supply partners too.
Social responsibility
“Another really important facet has been our partnership with Neutral Carbon Zone (NCZ) where again we have bought our supply chain partners with us on a journey, as one of the first businesses in the UK able to report source three data in the same way as our own. We are very proud that over an 18-month period this commitment saw our carbon footprint reduce by 44 per cent/£m revenue whilst the business grew by 46 per cent. We believe ESG is something you live and breathe. Very much like our philosophy on profit – it’s a result of doing things well. Being a socially responsible business is just part of Linaker’s DNA.”
Complementary to these contracts and technological innovations, Linaker has also expanded geographically. Ireland has been a key growth market for Linaker following the success of its offices in Northern Ireland and the RoI, and the business is eyeing further expansion across the island.
“Our offices in Northern Ireland and the RoI are doing really well,” Claire shares. “Our strategic decision to work in these areas was driven by existing clients expanding into these growing markets. We continue to grow alongside them as well as targeting new clients in order to grow our engineering density and to drive service performance and productivity.”
Another key component of Linaker’s continuing success is its great company culture. A proud equal opportunity employer, the business harbours a culture centred around integrity, inclusivity and respect, cultivating a friendly, supportive environment where its team can thrive and, in turn, continue to offer the highest quality service to its clients. Championing diversity, Linaker operates a meritocratic approach where everyone can succeed, with over 50 per cent of its board members being women.
“Our core values are care, reliability and trust; our team know them. Each area of the business has 12 key metrics based on these core values, which embody their delivery and each team member is incentivised by them,” Claire says. “We have company-wide events, such as this year’s LinakerLUAU, to celebrate our team’s achievements, alongside our “Pie and a Pint” and “Butty and a Brew” strategy roadshows, to ensure we stay as a team when working at pace, which positively embraces change.
“In a business growing as quickly as Linaker, to ensure you keep the amazing culture and the service quality, you must communicate effectively internally. There has been a lot of change over the last five years but it’s about embracing this change and seeing the positive outcomes.
“Trust is important, which is why I couldn’t be prouder of the statistic that 96 per cent of our team trust the senior leaders in the business. This has a lot to do with how we share information openly and transparently, declaring our journey and allowing other team members to plan theirs. This is the reason we have seen 31 per cent of internal promotions this year and an industry-setting retention of around 80 per cent.”
Key priorities
Moving into 2025, Linaker is set for a bright future. As the company approaches £100 million turnover – an incredible milestone – Claire is keen to continue its impressive growth strategy and grow the business by a further 40 per cent. In conjunction with this, she reveals four key areas that Linaker will be prioritising over the course of the year.
“The first of these focuses is our people. Linaker’s culture and engagement is vibrant and maintaining this is a huge priority for us,” Claire explains. “The second is ESG: we want to ensure we have a positive impact on our clients, our supply partners and the world.
“Thirdly, we will be continuing our journey to self-deliver more elements of our services to our clients to create optimum value, the utmost compliance surety and control.
Finally, we will also focus on our continuous improvement journey into smart technology, system enhancement and security.”
Expanding on its existing success and dedication to development and innovation, it’s clear that Linaker will continue to shine in the UK engineering sphere, setting an example with its commitment to client care and industry excellence. As our conversation draws to a close, Claire hopes that Linaker will “continue to be a happy place full of talented people, who produce exceptional service for its valued clients.”