ATK.L Regulatory News (ATK)

Atkins trading in line with its expectations

WS Atkins plc ("Atkins" or "the Group"), the design and engineering consultancy group, today provides its Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 October 2011 to date.

Group performance

The Group continues to trade in line with our expectations and despite challenging market conditions our outlook for the year remains unchanged.

United Kingdom

Our UK business has performed well in the period, notwithstanding the hiatus in rail signalling contract awards previously highlighted. We were pleased to announce in January our success on two of these regional rail framework contracts, although the delay in the awards has adversely impacted our margins in this business over the past six months.

Our underlying headcount in the UK remains stable, with a number of businesses in the region expected to show modest growth through the second half of the year. The sale of our UK Asset Management business resulted in a reduction of around 550 employees during the period.

North America

Despite a slow start to the seasonally weaker second half of the year from our North American consultancy business, the outlook for the full year remains in line with our expectations and we continue to anticipate overall year on year margin improvement.

The management team in Peter Brown remains focused on resolving the project issues previously identified, which we expect to result in a small loss for the business in the full year.

Middle East

In the Middle East we have recently been successful in securing two sizeable contracts in Qatar. The first is to establish a Central Planning Office and the second is a five-year contract to transform the road and drainage systems in Doha. With these contract wins our headcount in the region is expected to increase to just under 2,000 by 31 March 2012.

We remain well placed to take advantage of significant opportunities although we continue to experience more onerous contract payment terms on some of our current government and infrastructure work.

Asia Pacific and Europe

Our Asia Pacific and Europe businesses continue to perform well, despite very weak market conditions in both Portugal and Ireland.

Energy

Our Energy business continues to operate in buoyant markets and we are making good progress in growing both organically and through the integration of our recently acquired businesses. The Pöyry acquisition, in particular, has enhanced our skills to develop front end engineering work in the offshore oil and gas market and is already improving our ability to compete in this area.

Financial position

The Group's financial position remains strong and we are on track to report net funds of over £100 million at 31 March 2012.

Outlook

The Group's geographic and sector diversification continues to provide resilience and our overall outlook for the year remains unchanged.

The Group will publish a pre close trading update on 11 April 2012.

Ends

Enquiries

Notes to editors:

1. Atkins

Atkins (www.atkinsglobal.com) is one of the world's leading engineering and design consultancies*, employing some 17,700 people across the UK, North America, Middle East, Asia Pacific and Europe. It has the breadth and depth of expertise to plan, design and enable some of the world's most technically challenging and time critical infrastructure projects.

*It is the largest engineering consultancy in the UK (New Civil Engineer Consultants File 2011) and the 13th largest global design firm (Engineering News-Record 2011).

Atkins is the official engineering design services provider for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

2. Analyst Conference Call

A conference call for analysts will be held at 0800 hours today. Dial-in details are available from Kate Moy, investor relations director, +44 (0) 20 7121 2000.

3. Cautionary Statement

This information has been prepared only for the shareholders of Atkins as a whole and its sole purpose and use is to assist shareholders to exercise their governance rights. Atkins and its directors and employees are not responsible for any other purpose or use or to any other person in relation to this announcement.

This announcement contains indications of likely future developments and other forward-looking statements that are subject to risk factors associated with, among other things, the economic and business circumstances occurring from time to time in the countries, sectors and business segments in which the Group operates. These and other factors could adversely affect the Group's results, strategy and prospects. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. They relate to events and/or depend on circumstances in the future which could cause actual results and outcomes to differ materially from those currently anticipated. No obligation is assumed to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.