M&M CONCRETE REINFORCEMENT: The Groundwork Behind the Grid
Building out the solid infrastructure base that will host key technological elements of the UK’s energy transition strategy is no easy feat, and cannot be achieved without quality focused entities that have experience and understanding of what it takes to create lasting, sustainable structure. M&M Concrete Reinforcement is positioning itself as a key player in this space, achieving all required accreditations and certifications to support renewable energy projects around the country.
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Concrete rarely gets the credit it deserves in the story of the energy transition. Behind every battery storage compound, every substation and every cable route feeding power back into the grid, there is a foundation poured, reinforced and finished to exacting tolerances long before a single panel or transformer arrives on site. Get it wrong, and the heaviest, most sophisticated infrastructure in the country has nothing solid to stand on. Get it right, and nobody notices at all, which is precisely how the team at M&M Concrete Reinforcement Services likes it.
Founded in Caerphilly in 2018, M&M started out as a straightforward reinforced concrete contractor before finding its niche in renewable energy, where BESS compounds, substations and cable infrastructure demand a level of precision few civils contractors bother to master. It remains a family-run business, but one that has scaled quickly without losing the personal touch that first won it work. Directors Simon Moses and Sian Moses, who founded the company together, sum up the journey simply: “We started as a reinforced concrete company and we have grown into the renewable energy space which has been a very nice journey. It is nice to work on projects that help improve the environment and are also commercially positive.”
That growth has been dramatic. Operations Manager Matt Hall, who joined in 2023 from one of the UK’s leading principal contractors in the renewable sector, has watched the business scale from a turnover of around £290,000 in 2021 to £878,000 in 2023, following the company’s transition from a labour-only subcontractor to delivering complete civil engineering packages incorporating labour, plant and materials. This strategic change accelerated the company’s growth, with turnover reaching £2.2 million in 2024, followed by £7.6 million in 2025 – its first full year operating under the labour, plant and materials delivery model. M&M expects to surpass that figure once again in 2026, reflecting the company’s continued expansion and growing presence within the UK energy infrastructure sector.
“We have achieved substantial growth and we don’t market ourselves,” Hall explains. “All of our business comes from repeat customers and 70% comes from renewable energy projects with the balance coming from corporate customers and smaller civils projects.” It is an unusual position for a contractor to be in, growing on the strength of word of mouth alone.
Pre-Construction & Commercial Lead Ian Rush, who joined in 2025 bringing extensive experience from the power and utilities sector, has helped sharpen that delivery from the earliest stages of a project. “I have come in to help in estimating and commercial elements, allowing the business to get a better footprint in pre-construction, and the early stages,” he says. “That gives the company the comfort to be able to go and deliver on projects.”
As projects move through the cycle, Construction Manager, Jamie Bussell takes up delivery on site. He has been instrumental in driving the substantial growth and success that M&M has achieved in recent times. Bussell orchestrates the delivery of all grid projects and plays a key role in ensuring they are successfully managed from mobilisation through to completion, working closely with clients and showcasing the collaborative nature on which M&M prides itself. His experience in heavy civils and commercial groundworks, having delivered high-rise concrete frame buildings in the residential market.
GROWING TRUST
Accreditation has played its part in the company’s growth trajectory. M&M now holds National Electricity Registration Scheme (NERS) approval, awarded by LRQA, covering Tier 2 civil works and cable laying up to 132kV, a credential that has opened doors previously closed to the business. “We are now proudly NERS accredited to start taking work from tier 1 contractors,” Hall says. “We have established a civils construction and cable pulling division in the business, staying away from mechanical and electrical engineering. We are not trying to chase work, we are trying to show what we can do for future clients.”
The company has also become a competent contractor on National Grid assets, a status Hall describes as hard-won. “The LRQA accreditation from NERS allows us to work on the National Grid. We have received our first contract as a result of that process from a contractor who works for National Grid. We had found it difficult to break into this market without the accreditation for National Grid, but now we are going in and fixing many problems that have been made by those who have rushed projects through. We are recognised as a competent contractor, and we have spent a lot of money putting 20 full-time staff through training to ensure we are doing all the right things.”
For Rush, the accreditation is as much about visibility as capability. “We want to put ourselves in the shopwindow,” he says. “We do win repeat work, and if we can get in front of more customers then we will be confident in winning more work.” That confidence extends to a supply chain built on longevity rather than convenience.
“We work with the best in the concrete space and we have direct relationships with the best partners,” says Hall. “We get repeat work because we don’t break the cycle. Our people are longstanding, and our staff is retained and happy. It’s the same as the relationships with our subcontractors – we circulate work with the same companies repeatedly rather than breaking off to save a few pounds.”
FLAGSHIP DELIVERY
The clearest expression of what M&M can now do sits in East Sussex- something of a breakout development for the business. “We have a new project underway now, which is our biggest project to date,” Moses confirms.
“It’s a BESS 100MW project and we have won the package to supply the main cable export into the grid,” adds Rush. “It’s tapping off overhead existing lines, 2.7km from the site on a 132kV circuit. The onsite BESS has new technology employed to reduce the size of the batteries, but the footprint is still large. It is a flagship project for us and something we are excited about.”
The scale of ambition across this project reflects a wider pattern across the UK’s battery storage sector, where deployment has accelerated sharply as operators look for ways to balance an increasingly renewable-heavy grid. Analysis from McKinsey suggests installed BESS capacity across global markets could grow by around 50% a year between 2022 and 2030, with the technology increasingly relied upon to manage the intermittency that wind and solar bring to the system. Alongside the cable and civils works, M&M has also supported the enabling works and ground preparations for an acoustic noise barrier at the Mill Hill BESS project, delivered in partnership with Gridtec and Gramm Barrier Systems, ensuring foundations and access routes were ready ahead of the installation team and helping the project maintain its programme certainty close to residential areas.
None of this happens without an industry that takes quality seriously. There has been mounting pressure on construction firms to address both operational and embodied emissions on the road to net zero, a backdrop that makes groundworks and reinforced concrete more important than ever, since poorly executed civils can undermine the performance of the very technology they are built to support. Industry analysis of quality control in renewable energy construction makes a similar point, noting that inconsistent oversight on site can lead to costly rework long after the concrete has cured.
BUILT ON HONESTY
What separates M&M from other contractors chasing work in the same space is not simply technical competence, but the way the business conducts itself once it is on site: “We are very good at what we do,” says Rush, plainly. “Our collaborative approach with clients is key to our success. There are always issues that come up on projects and we know that. We work closely together to ensure we get around issues and help our clients to achieve their goals.”
Hall goes further, describing transparency from the very start of a tender. “We are the team that sits behind the scenes. But when we hand the project from pre-construction to delivery, there are no missing components and things don’t just start again. We are very honest, right from the start. We help build projects successfully from the beginning of the tender, alongside the client, and that approach to delivery means we have always finished our jobs on time, no excuses. We like to go above-and-beyond to ensure clients are happy, even if problems are not our own, because when clients are happy, that will mean repeat business.”
Moses is clear that early engagement is a discipline the business holds itself to throughout a contract, not a courtesy. “We have early engagement with our clients, and we collaborate from the start. We retain that level of commitment all the way through until the very end of a project. There is no thought of getting onto site and letting our performance slip because we have won the contract. We bring the same standards from day one, all the way through.” Rush explains the outcome of that discipline: “Our clients can put trust in M&M, and that is something we are proud of and take very seriously.”
Behind the commercial success sits a workforce Hall credits directly for the company’s reputation. “We have a fantastic team and they are a massive part of our success. We take a family approach to work, and everyone speaks to each other every day. No one hides from problems; we deal with things collectively from start to finish.”
As the UK pushes towards its renewable energy targets, the contractors working beneath the surface of these projects rarely feature in the headlines, yet without them the technology that dominates the conversation would have nowhere to go. Battery storage, substations and grid connections are only as strong as the concrete and civils work supporting them, and billions of pounds a year in infrastructure investment are required through the rest of the decade to deliver the transition. Companies like M&M, quietly building those foundations while keeping faith with clients who return to them project after project, are proving how central specialist reinforced concrete contractors have become to an industry that could not move forward without them.