West Country building services group Mitie yesterday said it is winning new contracts which are keeping it on course to increase profits this year and next year.

Chief executive Ruby McGregor-Smith said that overall trade was growing, despite the recession, and the company was more than replacing any work it lost.

The Bristol-based business – whose services include maintenance, cleaning, security, engineering and landscaping – is on track to meet expectations for the year to April.

It said it was "particularly pleased" with a host of deals landed from public and private clients since January.

These include contracts from Eurostar for security checks at its St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford International terminals, as well as a £100 million management deal for utility Thames Water's estate.

Mitie has also landed a repair deal for 6,500 proper- ties throughout Hampshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire from the Wessex Housing Partnership.

The contract wins come despite a persisting slow- down in areas such as new- build housing and interior fit-out work, although Mitie said its exposure to these sectors was small.

Shares rose two per cent following the update.

Mitie said some "non-core" areas of business such as interior fit-out and new-build housing were continuing to suffer from low demand.

But even though the firm, has many big clients in the financial sector, which has been devastated by the eco- nomic crisis, Mitie is actually experiencing an upsurge in its core business.

Ruby McGregor-Smith said: "The services people think are likely to be affected most – such as security – are not.

"Interestingly enough they've really held up.

"In terms of cleaning we've not seen any radical changes to any of our portfolios across the market.

"The only time you see it is when there's a building closure, because even if you have fewer people in a building, from a health and safety perspective you need to look after them.

"We've grown this year and expect to grow next year."

She said this showed that when there were changes to the "portfolio mix", the company was in a good position to respond.

The Mitie boss added that the company's hi-tech know-how was helping it to hang on to some of its most important contracts.

"Smaller contracts may be determined on price a bit more," she explained.

"But when you're cleaning for someone like HBOS or Barclays there are sophis- ticated IT systems involved, so they can't just go out and retender to a group of local contractors.

"IT now tends to win you those contracts."

She added that clients were increasingly using digital systems for their invoicing, and to monitor clocking in and clocking out.

"In the financial services sector we've seen our biggest growth since we've started."