– Leading Sisk to new horizons
Navigating legislative bottlenecks and shifting market models, PAUL BROWN has overseen a period of significant evolution at Sisk. In this wide-ranging interview, he tells ROBBIE COUSINS how the firm is doubling down on its strategic priorities and expanding its horizons from the Irish bedrock to the high-tech hubs in mainland Europe and the US.
Paul Brown is approaching his fifth year at the helm as CEO of Sisk, a period that has required him and the Sisk senior management team (SMT) to navigate the aftermath of a global pandemic, supply chain crises, and dramatic shifts in the legislative landscape of the Irish and UK construction markets. As he looks back on 2025, it is evident that Sisk’s ‘Breaking New Ground’ (2021- 2025) corporate strategy has allowed the contractor to pivot, adapt, and look towards new horizons.
Paul Brown
One of the most immediate points of interest for industry watchers is Sisk’s financial performance over the past year. With the construction sector facing headwinds across Europe, maintaining profitability while managing top-line revenue is a delicate balancing act.
The headline figures reveal a slight dip in overall revenue, but a remarkably strong profit margin.
Paul Brown describes Sisk as a business in good health.
“This strong result puts the group exactly where we hoped to be when we launched our Breaking New Ground strategy, proving our resilience against what has been a turbulent global market.”
Despite its growing international footprint, Ireland remains the bedrock of Sisk’s operations. Of the projected €2.6bn total revenue, approximately €1.3bn— exactly half—is generated within the Irish market.
The sectoral breakdown of this revenue highlights Sisk’s dominance in high-tech, complex construction environments.
“A big highlight is that life sciences and tech delivered just over €500m of that revenue in the year,” Paul Brown points out. “Data centres accounted for a similar scale.”
Combined, these high-tech sectors contribute roughly €1bn to the group’s overall portfolio, underscoring Sisk’s reputation as a contractor capable of delivering mission-critical infrastructure.
However, the broader Irish market is not without its frustrations, particularly regarding public infrastructure. Brown highlights that the rollout of projects under the National Development Plan (NDP) has been slightly slower than anticipated. But he says things are changing.
“We are seeing evidence that this is the case,” he comments. “But the introduction of the Accelerating Task Force and the Critical Infrastructure Bill will have a huge impact, and Sisk is well-positioned as an organisation to help deliver that. We can now see the projects starting to come to market, and we are focused on aligning suitable resources to support the process.”
He references two major transport initiatives Sisk currently has on site.
“We’ve got the Limerick to Foynes rail project, the 40km reinstatement of the rail network for Irish Rail, and the Adare bypass, which we’re busily trying to get ready for a golf event next year – the Ryder Cup in September 2027. Nothing like having to deliver a major sports venue or critical infrastructure for an event to focus the mind.”
Residential and commercial resurgence
While public infrastructure may be moving at a measured pace, the residential sector in Ireland is proving to be an active space for Sisk. A key driver of this activity is the Land Development Agency (LDA), which has matured into a vital client for the industry.
“We saw good activity in 2025 in Ireland, with residential ramping up to some degree,” he observes. “Clients such as the LDA have become extremely active, and I would say very productive in getting projects to market not only in Dublin but in the wider regions. I think that will continue during 2026 and into 2027.”
Sisk is currently delivering significant residential capacity across the country. Brown specifically mentions major completed or ongoing projects such as Belmayne, Glass Bottle, Cherry Orchard Point, and O’Devaney Gardens, all in Dublin. “We have also just commenced a student accommodation project at UCD.”
Despite post-pandemic anxieties regarding the future of the workplace, Paul Brown remains optimistic about the commercial sector.
“I think we’re going to see an increase in commercial office space development in Ireland. We’re seeing evidence that is the case, not only from clients but also from funders,” he notes, signalling a renewed confidence in urban commercial developments.
“Commercial projects we have on site at the moment include Opera Square in Limerick, Cleeves Riverside Quarter for the OPW on the Shannon, also in Limerick. In Dublin, we have just completed The Frame building on Baggot Street, and there is a lot more to come to market in 2026.”
He adds, “On the data centre front, we have delivered a data centre for Vantage outside Dublin, and we have been very active in the Nordics and the Netherlands in this sector.”
Healthcare: Delivering critical capacity
Healthcare construction remains a cornerstone of Sisk’s expertise, spanning both Ireland and the UK. The company’s ability to deliver complex clinical environments has resulted in a robust pipeline of hospital projects.
“Healthcare in Ireland remains a very strong focus for us,” Paul Brown states. “We have recently achieved significant milestones in the mid-west region. We’ve completed the first phase of a 96-bed ward at the University Hospital Limerick. We’ve done the enabling works for phase two. We also handed over the Bon Secours private hospital in Limerick, a 99-bed private hospital. A fantastic project delivered really well, and it’s the first large non-hub hospital to open in Ireland for almost 20 years.”
This expertise translates seamlessly across the Irish Sea. In the UK, Sisk is currently undertaking one of the most prestigious and challenging healthcare builds in Europe.
“We’ve got Great Ormond Street Hospital’s famous children’s cancer care facility, which we’re about 30% of the way through completing,” he notes.
Impact of the UK Building Safety Act
The UK construction market has historically been a significant growth engine for Sisk, but the past few years have tested the sector’s agility. However, there was good news for Sisk in 2025.
“Our UK business returned to profitability in 2025, which is good for us,” says Paul Brown.
Some of the issues that arose in the UK market relate to the UK government’s Building Safety Act (BSA), which has greatly affected the delivery of high-rise housing.”
The introduction of the BSA —a necessary legislative response to the tragedy of the Grenfell Tower fire—fundamentally altered the regulatory landscape for high-rise residential projects. “
The UK has been quite a challenging market compared to the Irish market, particularly in the residential sector,” he continues. “High-rise residential in the UK has been particularly impacted by the BSA. The UK government introduced this new legislation with the right intention; however, the approval process became extremely protracted, and it created a bottleneck for the industry, as no projects were getting approved. So, effectively, for two years, there was a stymie for high-rise residential.
“I am pleased to say the process is now moving and we are starting to see activity returning. They still have the BSA, but we are now starting to see green shoots of activity.”
For a company heavily invested in urban residential builds, this could have been disastrous.
However, despite the BSA, Brown points out that Sisk has had a number of residential developments on site in this time. These include projects at Bermondsey in south London and Eliza Yard in Manchester.
He explains that in the UK, when the BSA bottlenecks arose, Sisk’s strategic foresight also allowed it to pivot away from the stalled residential market and direct resources towards thriving sectors.
“It enabled us to pivot. Residential is still very strong for us, but we pivoted into other sectors like healthcare, commercial, and leisure,” Brown says.
The move into the leisure and sporting sector has yielded some of Sisk’s most high-profile UK contracts to date.
“You’d be very aware of projects like Manchester City Football Club’s Etihad Stadium, which is a mixed-use development comprising leisure, commercial and hotel elements. We’ve also secured Edgbaston Cricket Club in Birmingham, which is one of the England cricket test match venues,” he explains.
These sporting venues come with immovable, hard deadlines, requiring extreme precision and project management.
As Paul Brown points out with a smile, “Irrespective of entitlement, these facilities need to be finished for those end dates because the dates don’t move. I like this because it certainly focuses the mind too.”
At the time of the interview, Sisk was racing to complete seating at the north stand of the Etihad expansion by 23 May for Manchester City’s final game of the Premier League season, while the Edgbaston facility must be ready to host the Australians for an Ashes test in June 2027.
Sisk’s global expansion
As Sisk enters the next phase of its corporate journey, its ambitions are expanding far beyond the UK and Ireland. A key pillar of its strategy over the past 18 months has been securing a foothold in the United States, specifically leveraging Sisk’s world-class expertise in Life Sciences.
“Eighteen months ago, we made a strategic decision to have a look at the US market from a pharma and life sciences perspective,” Paul Brown reveals. “We created an entity in the US with an eyes-wide-open approach. We didn’t want to go in as a main general contractor; we wanted to go in with clients we knew. We’ve been asked by clients to come there and take a look.”
Entering the complex US pharmaceutical construction market is a monumental achievement, which shows that Sisk’s capabilities are recognised on a global scale.
Farrans acquisition
Simultaneously, Sisk has significantly bolstered its domestic and UK capabilities with a strategic acquisition.
At the end of October 2025, Sisk completed the acquisition of Farrans, previously owned by CRH.
“The Farrans acquisition is a nice segue into the end of Breaking New Ground and the start of Sisk’s next journey,” he says. “We finalised the deal at the end of October and purchased the full share options from CRH.
“Farrans is a business that’s been sitting in CRH for over 40 years, a Northern Ireland-domiciled business with around 600 employees, of which about 100 are blue-collar, which is of great interest to us, as Farrans self-delivers its projects, particularly in the water sector.”
Because the acquisition happened late in the year, Farrans only contributed about €60m to Sisk’s €2.6bn revenue for 2025 (representing just two months of trading). However, the strategic value of the acquisition lies in the sectors Farrans operates within.
“What we liked about Farrans was that they made a pivot a few years ago to focus their activity on three primary sectors: Water, energy, and aviation,” he explains. “Farrans have frameworks in Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and with Irish Water in Ireland. They’ve got frameworks in the UK, and they’ve also just secured a big framework with Scottish Water. That was an area where, while Sisk had worked in water, we’d never had a water business.
“Farrans has a strong track record in major projects on regional airports across the UK. And, in energy, they have built renewable projects and battery storage projects.
“So, we wanted to harness that capability into the Sisk operations.”
To integrate this new acquisition and drive the infrastructure business forward, Sisk has appointed Leo Martin as chief operating officer (COO).
“We appointed Leo Martin in January 2026 to join the business as COO. He takes board responsibility for not only Farrans but also our Sisk Infrastructure business as well,” Brown explains.
Evolution not revolution
Paul Brown characterises the next phase of Sisk’s development as a period of evolution rather than revolution. Instead of a radical overhaul, the company intends to focus on “doubling down” on its proven strengths and further embedding the core values that have already led to success. This strategy is anchored by the primary pillars of quality of earnings, people and culture, and safe, sustainable construction.
