________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Headquartered in Wattens, Austria, the SWARCO Group specialises in the traffic and technology industry, particularly in road safety, traffic management and intelligent transport systems( ITS). Its use of advanced technology provides the connection between civil engineering, infrastructure, safety, and the information the public see on the road. John Pickworth, Managing Director and Head of Region, tells us more about the scope of SWARCO UK & Ireland’ s operations and the journey that has brought it to where it is today.
“ SWARCO was founded in 1969 by Austrian entrepreneur Manfred Swarovski, from the same broad Swarovski family known for highquality crystal. The part we grew from is the offshoot of that world: glass beads, which find their way into road-marking systems, making them sufficiently retroreflective to be visible in the dark. Once we found a way to use that technology to improve road safety worldwide, the business grew steadily from there. Manfred was highly entrepreneurial, and by the mid-1980s, we had moved into the traffic signalling business through the acquisition of a company called Futurit in Austria. That gave us the foundation to develop traffic signals and dynamic road signs, progressing through different technologies all the way to the LED systems and the advanced software in use today. That move took us into the ITS sector, and from there, both the road marking and ITS sides of the business have grown in parallel. This growth was achieved both organically and through an active acquisition strategy, where we buy companies, accelerate their growth, integrate them, and work carefully to align cultures,” he begins.
The scale of that growth is substantial. Between 2021 and today, our SWARCO UK & Ireland business has grown from £ 18 million 58