Next year will see Spray Plaster Specialists (SPS) celebrating its 15th anniversary and since its creation the Loughborough-based company has grown every single year thanks to the quality of its service and growing demand.
“We started off turning over around £100,000 a year and this figure has increased steadily to the extent that our turnover was £6m in 2024,” explains Matt Smith, Director. “We now operate all over the country, from as far north as Lossiemouth in Scotland down to Brighton and Bournemouth on the south-coast, as well as west into Devon, Cornwall and Wales.”
Supporting SPS’s activities is a workforce of around 100 employees. This gives the company the capabilities to operate nationwide, offering a full suite of services that includes airless spray plastering, general decoration, dry lining, and plastering/taping and joining.
The commercial success SPS has been enjoying has been thanks to an ever-expanding list of clients, many of which are repeat customers, demonstrating the strength of its offering. It has also received industry recognition too, having recently just missed out on a prestigious FIS Award after being nominated in the ‘Plastering – Fibrous and GRG’ category for its work on The Blade and 360 project in Manchester. This involved the application of spray plaster to walls and ceilings, all communal areas, staircases and amenity spaces in 885 residential apartments.
“It was really pleasing to be nominated, which was an achievement in itself,” adds Matt. “Even though we didn’t win in the end, it’s great that we were recognised by the industry for undertaking such a large niche project.
“It was a fantastic development to be involved in and it’s fairly typical of the work we do, especially within the Manchester area for this particular client. They were one of the first companies to utilise spray plaster within all their projects within the north-west, so it’s great that they’ve been recognised too.”
To give an indication of the scale of The Blade and 360 development, which had a value of £2.4m, SPS was involved in the contract for two and a half years. In terms of what impressed the FIS Awards judges enough for the project to be shortlisted, Matt believes a number of factors were at play. “The quality and speed of the finish were certainly key factors in our nomination. It would be fair to say that spray plastering is still quite new to the FIS, as it’s not really had much award recognition previously, so hopefully the project will help put it on the map as a viable option.”
With the wider industry looking like it is finally waking up to the benefits of spray plastering, the wealth of experience SPS has honed over the years in the technology means it is better placed than most to capitalise. Combined with a strong emphasis on staff development and investment in machinery, the company looks primed to build further on the growing demand for its services.
“We’ve got nearly 40 machines now and we’re working hard to keep growing the team too. We’re enjoying high levels of repeat business, as an increasing number of companies move towards spray plaster because of the advantages it provides.
“A key strength of spray plastering is its versatility. We’ve used its application from everything from large high rise residential buildings through to hospitals and student accommodation. There’s a wide scope of potential work to go at.
“In terms of specific developments we’ve carried out recently, in addition to the Blade and 360 in Manchester, we’ve been working on large student accommodation projects in Leeds and Nottingham, as well as a hotel at the Belfry golf resort in Sutton Coldfield.”
Due to growing demand, SPS is working hard to avoid becoming a victim of its own success, as it strives to develop the infrastructure it needs to take on more work without overstretching itself and seeing its high-quality standards suffer as a consequence.
“In the current marketplace, finding labour is challenging, as there is a definite shortage at the minute. This is an issue that everyone in construction is facing, not just ourselves. We’re therefore looking to develop our people as much as we can to retain our existing workforce and be in a better position to attract additional staff too.”
Given the growth it has been seeing, it is clear that SPS has come up with a viable recipe for ongoing expansion. As long as it keeps investing in its equipment and its people, the sky is the limit. “We’ve got a lot of work in the pipeline and there’s a number of opportunities in London that we’re hopeful will come to fruition,” concludes Matt. “The aim for the next 12 months is to just keep doing what we’re doing.”