Headland Group, one of the UK's largest archaeology organisations, has had its best ever year with group turnover smashing £12m and post tax transfers to reserves topping £1m for the year ended 31 May 2008.

Formed in 1996 in a former lemonade factory in Edinburgh, the group, which has subsidiaries in the UK and Ireland and offices in Edinburgh, Cork, Galway and Glasgow, has continued to make substantial investments in plant and equipment and ended the year with a balance sheet value of almost £2m.

Headland work on a wide range of archaeological projects, from windfarm Environmental Impact Assessments to maritime wreck surveys.

The bulk of their turnover comes from dealing with the archaeology in advance of large infrastructure projects.

During the past year, several major roads projects in Northern Ireland (A1 Newry and A4 Dungannon) and the M80 and M74, Glasgow, were important UK projects handled by the company.

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In Southern Ireland notable projects included the N9/N10 Carlow Bypass, N25 Waterford Bypass, and N7 Nenagh to Limerick high quality dual carriageway.

Headland’s success lies in its ability to deliver high quality archaeological work within a high pressure construction environment where delay and uncertainty are the biggest risk to developers.

Headland has proved itself adept at managing the demands of heritage and construction interests at the same time while being totally focussed on delivering agreed objectives.

Some of the projects handled in the past year have been huge and have required the group to mobilise a team of 200 people in a matter of weeks.

"Logistically complex and academically challenging, the fieldwork requires management skills comparable with any major engineering project," said Tim Holden, Managing Director of Headland Archaeology UK.

Fieldwork, radiocarbon dating, specialist analysis and detailed evidential reports are all in a day's activity for Headland.

On the back of the record-breaking year, the group is now restructuring to sustain momentum and enable the regional boards to concentrate on developing their home markets.

As an incentive, Headland is also widening share ownership amongst staff to enable employees to share in the group's success.

Mr Holden added: "This is remarkable performance for a company in our field. The healthy profits made in 2007-8 leave the Headland Group in a favourable position to weather the current economic storm.

"We have prospered over the past 10 years in spite of severe skills shortages in an industry where lifestyle and academic interest are often felt to be in conflict with a business-like approach to archaeology."

(GK/BMcc)