From one day a week to a full-service partnership: doubling a resources maintenance business
A lean, owner-operated Western Australian maintenance contractor grew turnover from $5 million to $10 million in twelve months, secured a two-year maintenance contract and completed a successful sale. Infrastructure People was embedded across recruitment, business development and brand for the whole journey.
The business
The client was a Western Australian mechanical maintenance contractor supplying skilled trades, boilermakers, fitters, auto electricians and fabricators, to the mining and resources sector. Servicing the Goldfields, Perth, the Pilbara and the Northern Territory, it was competing in one of the tightest labour markets in the country. What began as a one-day-a-week recruitment contract grew, over eighteen months, into a full-service partnership across talent acquisition, business development and branding.
The challenge
Three pressures were working against the business at once. A national skills shortage for trades made experienced people hard to find and harder to keep. The owner was managing recruitment, clients and day-to-day operations single-handedly, which capped how much new work could be taken on. And the business needed stronger branding and systems if it was to win and service larger contracts against better-resourced competitors.
The approach
Infrastructure People moved from a single recruitment day each week to an all-inclusive engagement, managing sourcing, LinkedIn search, onboarding and direct client liaison on the owner’s behalf from start to finish. Alongside the resourcing work, we identified prospective clients and negotiated rates to build a pipeline of contracts. We also delivered a complete brand and collateral refresh: a new website, a capability statement, contractor engagement agreements and a full brand identity that positioned the business to compete for larger work.
The results
Over the engagement the business doubled, with turnover growing from $5 million to $10 million within twelve months as the workforce and client base scaled. Twenty-eight placements were made. A two-year maintenance contract gave the business a stable, ongoing pipeline of work. The rebrand was delivered in full, and we supported the owner through the successful sale of the business in December 2025.
How we partner
This engagement shows the value of a flexible, scalable workforce solution that grows with the business it supports. Rather than filling a single vacancy and stepping away, we embedded across the whole operation, combined recruitment with commercial and growth advisory, and stayed alongside the owner through to a successful exit. For lean, owner-led businesses, that breadth is often the difference between holding steady and scaling.
“This engagement shows what an embedded partnership can achieve. We did not simply fill roles, we helped build the business to the point where it was ready to sell.”
– Director, Infrastructure People
