About Us

Who are M O'Brien?

The M O’Brien Group has established itself as a leading industry service provider within the construction industry. Building on its core of excellent people and impressive fleet of equipment and vehicles, M O’Brien is uniquely positioned to support large construction projects regardless of their chosen delivery model.

The team at M O’Brien are hardworking and motivated individuals with a high knowledge of our industry, who are more than happy to help our customers with practical sound advice that comes from years of experience working on challenging and technical projects.

We invest in only the best equipment to ensure we provide a quality and reliable service to all of our customers no matter how big or small the Job. M O’Brien can supply a complete solution for Tier 1 Contractors and Land owners. From the demolition of an existing structure, earthworks, and civil engineering works providing a turn key solution for your development.

M O’Brien Group is renowned nationwide for the skill level and ability of its team. We employ some of the best, most reliable and experienced operators to work alongside us.

We invest in our people and believe whether they are experienced specialists or nurtured apprentices, seeing potential develop is highly rewarding for all involved.

Safety is extremely important to us, and if it can’t be done safely we do not do it. We work alongside clients that share our priority of getting everyone home safe each and every day. We are always at the forefront of innovation looking for safer ways to carry out our construction activities and have developed many tools that have helped develop a safety culture on site that are now common practice in today’s industry.

What do M O'Brien do?

The M O’Brien Group delivers on its promise to provide its customers with the highest level of service through collaborative working and rigorous quality systems.

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Operators Nationwide

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Pieces of Equipment

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Years Experience

Our History

Michael O’Brien was just 19 years old when he left Ireland to come to the UK in search of work. He very quickly found opportunity in the UK construction industry, initially starting out as a ground works labourer. As time went by, young Michael forged a desire to operate the machines and “blagged” his way into the seat during lunch breaks. During these periods he used to practice hard to perfect his skills and in time he was given his own machine to operate.

In 1990 Michael decided to have a go at machine ownership, and in conjunction with his wife Annamarie, the early foundations of the group were laid starting with M O’Brien Plant hire, which at the time was based in Luton. Michael’s first ever machine was a JCB 3CX, which they ran out of there back garden in the town. As the business expanded they were eventually running no less than 11 JCB’s – still from their garden! As one can imagine the neighbours soon got fed up with the sound of machines firing up at 5am in the morning and the late night sound of sledgehammers and tools clanging as repairs were carried out in preparation for the next day’s graft. It was at that time that the company purchased it’s first yard in Markyate, which today houses the groups head office and accounts department.

Today the business runs in excess of 800 pieces of equipment, employs 50 office based staff spread between two depots, around 700 plant operators at any one time plus supporting plant engineers and yard staff out of their premises near St Albans adjacent to the M1. The business operates not only locally but on a nationwide basis, providing a one stop plant solution to a wide variety of clients including blue-chip company’s such as Balfour Beatty, Skanska, Costain, Morgan Sindall, Bam Nuttall and HS2 to name but a few.

With the addition of Haulage and Contracting capabilities the group has diversified into a range of construction service providers supplying blue chip clients with our services including Earthworks and land remediation, Drainage installation, Demolition & Dismantling services, Aggregate Supply and quarry management services.

Being an Owner managed multi discipline supplier, we maintain a business ethos based on our core values that have seen the company grow to where we stand today. We care about our people, the communities in which we operate and take pride in the service we provide. Our core staff are long term high calibre individuals employed directly to our businesses who share these values and are responsible for the highly held reputation that the M O’Brien group of companies has earned.