Laing's construction business had been making significant losses, in part due to additional costs on the Cardiff Millennium Stadium project, the National Physical Laboratory, and No 1 Poultry in the City of London.

Ray O'Rourke, the company's executive chairman, assumed her role[11] although it was reported that O’Rourke could only spend a limited number of days in the United Kingdom, due to his tax exile status in Jersey.

[22] With its operations refinanced in the United Kingdom, Laing O’Rourke published accounts for the year to 31 March 2018, showing the group made a pre tax loss of £46.5m (down from £60.6m in 2017) on turnover down to £2.93bn from £3.17bn.

[24] Laing O'Rourke accounts for the year to 31 March 2023 showed a pre-tax loss of £288m on total revenues of £3.4 billion (including £2.18bn turnover from its Europe operations and £1.13bn in Australia).

People on sites across the group were served redundancy notices, including 60 at the Laing O'Rourke Centre of Excellence for Modern Construction (CEMC) at Steetley in Nottinghamshire.

[28] Its projects span a range of sectors including, building, transport, power, water & utilities, mining & natural resources and oil & gas.

[29] Major projects involving the company have included; Laing O'Rourke and its acquisition of 2004, Crown House, were revealed as subscribers to the United Kingdom's Consulting Association, exposed in 2009 for operating an illegal construction industry blacklist.

Laing O'Rourke was later one of eight businesses involved in the launch in 2014 of the Construction Workers Compensation Scheme,[62] condemned as a "PR stunt" by the GMB union, and described by the Scottish Affairs Select Committee as "an act of bad faith".