CIVIL engineering group Balfour Beatty said £1.2bn of contracts from London Underground had helped it boost annual pre-tax profits by ten per cent to £130m.

Balfour said its order book grew by 14 per cent to £5.8bn last year, mainly due to two Public Private Partnership (PPP) deals to upgrade the Tube.

The firm has a 20 per cent share in the Metronet consortium that has two lucrative 30-year concessions with London Underground.

The contracts were among six PPP deals that Balfour sealed during the year, including work to upgrade roads, schools and hospitals and a street lighting project in Sunderland.