Laing O’Rourke, a leading UK-based contractor, is rebuilding its operations in the UAE following a dramatic downsizing after the 2008 financial crisis through introduction of more modular building techniques into its Middle East projects, said a report.

As part of its new strategy, the company will not pursue large-scale civil infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges, but seek more complex building projects, including airports and healthcare work, reported the National citing a senior official.

"We are on track to more than double turnover we did in the last financial year for the Middle East as a result of a number of new contracts, including one at Dubai Parks and Resorts to deliver the Motiongate theme park alongside Al Futtaim Carillion," stated the company’s Middle East managing director Mark Andrews.

Laing O’Rourke is already building a Hilton Garden Inn hotel near Mall of the Emirates using bathroom “pods” with all of the showers, tiling and furniture pre-built at a factory in Jebel Ali and then dropped into place on site.

The modular construction had developed in the UK by a desire to reduce labour costs, but in the UAE “quality and certainty of delivery” were greater drivers, said Andrews, a former chief operating officer at Arabtec and ex-managing director at Murray & Roberts and Drake & Scull International.

Laing O’Rourke was a major player in the Middle East before the 2008 downturn, with a total workforce of about 20,000, including several thousand professional staff, said the report.

Many of these had worked for a joint venture with Aldar, which had built Al Raha Beach area and surrounding buildings such as Al Bandar, Al Zeina and Aldar’s own headquarters. In Dubai, the company built the Atlantis Hotel and the Mall of the Emirates ski slope.

However, after the Aldar partnership came to an end and work dried up elsewhere, the company’s workforce fell back to a core of about 3,000, it added.