Year End Trading Update

3 January 2019

Costain Group PLC

("Costain" or "the Group" or "the Company")

Year End Trading Update

Costain, the smart infrastructure solutions company, today issues a trading update ahead of announcing results for the year ended 31 December 2018 on 6 March 2019.

The Group has continued to perform well in the second half and expects to deliver full-year results in line with the Board's expectations.

This year has seen the Group make further progress on its strategy of transforming Costain into the UK's leading smart infrastructure solutions company. Costain is differentiating itself through its long-term strategic relationships and integrated technology-enabled services necessitated by the increasingly complex and fast-changing nature of its clients' requirements. The Group continues to be involved in a number of major regulatory-driven procurement processes.

The Group has finished the year with an order book at a record level of £4.2 billion (31 December 2017: £3.9 billion), reflecting Costain's market position with its target clients who are consolidating their supply chains to deliver increasingly large, multi-billion pound investment programmes underpinned by regulatory commitments. In addition, the Group's preferred bidder position stands at c £600 million (31 December 2017: £400 million).

The Group finished the year with a strong net cash position of over £110 million, in line with expectations, (31 December 2017: £177.7million) with the reduction from last year's exceptionally high level due to the timing of receipts in that period. Throughout the year the Group had a positive net cash position with an average month-end net cash balance of c £77 million (2017: £96.7 million).

Andrew Wyllie CBE, chief executive, said:

"This has been another year of progress for Costain. The benefits of our integrated offering, long-term strategic relationships with our clients and strong balance sheet position us well for the future and the significant opportunity we see across our rapidly-changing end markets."

Notes to Editors

Costain helps to improve people's lives by deploying technology-based engineering solutions to meet urgent national needs across the UK's energy, water and transportation infrastructures. We have been shaping the world in which we live for the past 150 years.

The Group's 'Engineering Tomorrow' strategy involves focusing on blue chip clients in chosen sectors whose major spending plans are underpinned by strategic national needs, regulatory commitments or essential maintenance requirements.

Costain's 4,000 people are committed to high performance and safe delivery. They are delivering a broad range of innovative services including consultancy, technology, asset optimisation and complex delivery services across a range of high profile contracts in the UK incorporating the whole life cycle of our clients' assets.

For more information visit www.costain.com