News

First Q Network celebrated its spring general meeting last 15th May by video-conference, due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe. The group combined workforce is 2.800 people. We predict both turnover and workforce will remain the same in 2020.

Some companies’ successes were shared among the members: Ethos Engineering were named Irish Engineering firm of the year 2018 and 2019, they have just been shortlisted for 2020 and so are aiming for three wins in a row. They were also officially recognised as a Best Place to Work 2020. Waldhauser + Hermann came 2nd and ZWP Ingenieur-AG came 3rd in the project-winning ranking for German speaking countries. Portuguese member LMGE reported good results from the 50/50 partnership with Sonae Sierra established in 2019, to push activities both nationally and internationally.

Most of the companies expect some activity setback due to the health crisis, particularly shopping centre and hotel projects, but also see some sector opportunities: more investment will be available for healthcare and pharma, logistics, data centres, and covid-safe re-designs.

All First Q members have successfully implemented remote-working strategies and remain fully operational. The meeting ended with a presentation from Garry Connolly (president of Host in Ireland) on Future Trends in Data Centres.

Next meeting will take place on the 15th October in Basel (Switzerland).