Recently acquired by Turner Construction Company, Dornan Group is entering a new era of engineering excellence
From building state-of-the-art data centres to impressive life sciences facilities, Dornan Group (Dornan) provides innovative solutions to complex engineering problems across a wide range of sectors. As a well-established mechanical, electrical, and HVAC engineering and construction company across Europe, Dornan is committed to achieving client satisfaction by delivering projects safely, on time, and to specification.
When we spoke with Micheál O’Connor, Group Managing Director, at the end of 2024, Dornan was in the process of being acquired by Turner Construction Company (Turner). Micheál joins Construction & Civil Engineering once again to share how the acquisition has shaped the company’s operations, as well as details on current projects and future plans. “As one of the largest construction companies in North America and a growing presence in Europe, Turner provides Dornan with unrivalled growth opportunities,” Micheál begins. “The deal was completed in January 2025, and we’ve been focused on integration since then, which has been fairly seamless and allows both companies to leverage combined opportunities across Europe.
Increased opportunities
“Dornan and Turner have lots of commonalities and shared values, particularly in terms of our culture and the way we approach project execution. We’re both learning things from one another and Turner provides a stable foundation for Dornan to continue its growth trajectory across Europe. The acquisition also secures more opportunities and a prosperous future for the people working within Dornan, and there’s a real sense of excitement and anticipation for the future among our employees.
“From a project perspective, the acquisition by Dornan has broadened our client base, diversified the industries we serve, and led to increased opportunities with Turner’s clients, not only in Europe but also in North America,” he continues. “Turner is part of a wider business, ACS Group, which is expanding its presence in the data centre sector. We’re well positioned to help with this data centre target, and this is just one example of the increased opportunities and pipelines available to us since the acquisition.”
Growth trajectory
Aside from the acquisition, Dornan has experienced significant growth over the last 12 months. “We started 2024 with around 1100 people and we now employ between 1400-and-1500,” Micheál shares. “We’ve also grown in terms of markets and capabilities. We’re engaging with more blue-chip clients across Europe since the acquisition, and Turner has introduced us to some clients in a number of sectors that we previously wouldn’t have had access to. Many of our existing clients were asking us to expand into the general contracting space, which is especially valuable in the data centre market, where one company develops the site infrastructure and another (like Dornan) would complete the entire fit out.”
Elaborating on Dornan’s work in the data centre market, Micheál adds: “We’re a specialist mechanical, electrical, and process contractor in the data centre space, and we’ve added capabilities to our portfolio to align with the increased commoditisation of data centres. Working in collaboration with some of our repeat clients, we’ve increased our engineering capabilities and developed a robust process for more standard elements of the data centre projects.
“The data centre market is only set to grow further considering the requirements of AI and the UK designating data centres as critical infrastructure. Data centres have already grown to be a significant portion of our business, but now with the support of Turner, we are well positioned to capitalise on the sector’s growth in the coming years.”
Prioritising people
As the company has grown, Dornan has retained its positive company culture by emphasising diversity, wellbeing, and personal development. “We’ve focused on three key areas in terms of employees: mental health and wellbeing, learning and development, and diversity,” Micheál confirms. “We know that construction can be a challenging sector and take a toll on people’s mental health, so we’ve developed a world-class mental health and wellbeing programme to ensure we offer the best support for our people.
“To encourage continuous learning and development, we’ve created the Dornan Academy, which provides employees with access to hundreds of online training modules. We’re also in the process of establishing the Dornan Centre of Excellence where we can train apprentices.
“We’ve always emphasised diversity, particularly through our ‘Women @ Dornan’ initiative which aims to grow the numbers of women at Dornan and in the wider industry. This includes visiting schools to encourage more girls to take up STEM subjects and explain the career options available to them. Through advocacy, support, and mentoring, we’re enhancing the career paths of women at Dornan and making it an attractive workplace for others.
“We survey our employees every year and use their feedback to shape our social value policy,” Micheál adds. “One thing that we recognised as important to our people, especially the younger generations, was the company’s position on environmental sustainability. We’ve been measuring our emissions footprint since 2018, but we’ve set ourselves a target for net-zero operations by 2050 and remain committed to sustainable innovation.”
From speaking with Micheál, it’s clear that Dornan’s acquisition by Turner has not only strengthened the company’s market position but has also expanded its opportunities in multiple sectors and geographies. To close our conversation, we ask Micheál his plans for 2026 and beyond. “Our priority is always to keep our people safe,” he states. “We’re a company that’s growing extensively and often when you bring new people in, it can impact your culture, but we strive to embed people into our way of working while maintaining our high standards of safety. As we approach the end of the year, we must ensure our standards don’t drop and that our people remain safe to celebrate the festivities with their families.”
Micheál concludes: “We’re also turning our attention to 2026, and we have a strong order book going into the new year. We’ll continue to grow and pivot to expanding industrial sectors, all while maintaining our commitment to people, culture, and successful project delivery.”