Places
Performance in 2025
2025 was a challenging year for Places, with performance impacted by lower business volumes across the property and investment sector and our semiconductor facilities work, and by overall delays in large clients’ Capex decisions, mostly in Europe.
The property and investment sector activity declined in 2025, particularly in architectural and residential-led markets. This was most pronounced in Canada, where reduced investor confidence, weaker project visibility, and delayed project starts affected performance. In addition, the performance was impacted by challenges during the Oracle ERP implementation in Canada.
Within the 'technology clients' sector of our business, it was a mixed year for our semiconductor facilities solutions, with some large projects coming to an end and delays in the commencement of new projects – but we saw strong performance in data centers as we captured opportunities worldwide. We also performed strongly in the life sciences sector, where client demand focused on integrated support across advisory, design, program management, and delivery. This was supported by continued investment in regulated manufacturing, R&D, and supply chain facilities.
Activity across the automotive industry and gigafactories declined following project deferrals and changes to major client programs, with macro-political factors, including tariffs and trade policy uncertainty, materially impacting investment decisions.
Government facilities performance was mixed, with some public-sector delays in the UK, but solid performance in part of Europe and US. The UK’s order intake picked up in the second half of 2025 for clients including Places for London, NHS, and Ministry of Justice, after the spending review was concluded.
KUA acquisition supports end-to-end project delivery
In March, Arcadis completed the acquisition of KUA Group, a leader in complex data center design. The combination of Arcadis’ global capabilities in site selection, program and cost management, and sustainability advisory with KUA’s highly specialized architecture, design, engineering, and general planning expertise represents a powerful combination.
In November 2025, KUA secured four new hyperscale data center projects in Germany with a combined value of approximately €8 million, reinforcing Arcadis’ presence in Europe’s digital infrastructure market.
Lower net revenue across 2025 adversely impacted operating EBITA. To mitigate this we implemented restructuring actions, and focused on cost discipline and cost recoveries, particularly in the UK and parts of the Americas. The impact of these actions was only partially visible in 2025, with the full benefit to come in 2026.
Priority areas: data centers and life sciences
For our data center and life sciences clients, Places differentiated itself through an end-to-end approach. We notably excel in permitting, technical advisory and industrial engineering. Places continued to deliver work for the global big tech and big pharma client base, alongside delivery for enterprise and co-location developers. In 2025, this included the full delivery of two data centers for KBC Group and support to Start Campus on the SINES DC project in Portugal.
Our team’s agility and ability to leverage our connected capabilities led to quality project wins in 2025, particularly in data centers and life sciences.
Edel Christie, Global President for Places and Global Intelligence and Advisory Officer
The acquisition of KUA Group in early 2025 further strengthened our European data center capabilities across site selection, planning, design, and delivery (see box on the previous page).
Global resource optimization
During 2025, Places accelerated its shift toward a more active global resource optimization, including the use of the GECs. This included transferring surplus capacity from lower-demand areas into priority client programs and accelerating work-sharing initiatives to improve utilization and delivery efficiency. Global resource optimization provides Places access to skills more flexibly while improving utilization and cost alignment especially in areas where talent supply is tight such as the US.
Priorities for 2026
In 2026, we will focus on winning work through enhanced sales efforts and disciplined delivery, while making sure we remain agile and timely shift or rightsize our resources where needed. We will prioritize and invest in our Global Excellence Centers and high growth markets life sciences and data centers.
Alongside these actions, we will continue to invest in our Key Client portfolio, with stronger performance management, clearer accountability, and focus on increased cross selling.
