George Bamford will become joint chairman of JCB alongside his father, Lord Bamford, on 1 October, the first change at the top of the construction and agricultural equipment maker’s boardroom in more than 50 years.
The company announced the appointment today as it reported that pre-tax profits fell to £642m in 2025 from £687.3m a year earlier, and reaffirmed its commitment to investing in UK and US manufacturing as it seeks a return to growth.
George Bamford, 45, is Lord Bamford’s younger son and founded his own watch company in 2009. Reports in May that he would succeed his father prompted surprise in parts of the business community, where some had expected his elder brother, Jo, to be in the frame. The appointment ends years of speculation over the future of one of the UK’s largest private companies.
JCB, which has 23 factories and more than 20,000 employees worldwide, said turnover dipped to £5.7bn in 2025, compared with £5.8bn in 2024. The group sold 113,498 machines during the year, down 5.2 per cent.
Graeme Macdonald, JCB’s chief executive, said: “While 2025 was a more challenging year with mixed market conditions around the world, JCB delivered a robust performance overall.”
According to the company, its North American market was flat and the Indian market contracted by 12 per cent, but JCB still grew its overall market share. Macdonald said he expected moderate growth in 2026 “despite ongoing geopolitical uncertainty”.
Best known for its yellow excavators, JCB also makes earth-moving and materials-handling machines and other agricultural and industrial equipment, and sells services and parts. It builds its own transmission systems in Wales, hydraulic cylinders and cabs in Staffordshire, and engines in Derbyshire.
JCB is about to open its largest factory in the world, in San Antonio, Texas, which will build Loadall telescopic handlers and access equipment. The company warned in August 2025 that US tariffs on steel and aluminium goods would cost it hundreds of millions of pounds.
In the UK, JCB is pressing ahead with a £100m upgrade of its Rocester headquarters in Staffordshire. The site has been the company’s home since 1950, when Lord Bamford’s father, Joseph Cyril Bamford, moved production into a former cheese factory in the village.
Lord Bamford said: “Last year, JCB celebrated its 80th birthday and, as we look ahead, we are investing heavily in the future of the business, from the transformation of our Staffordshire headquarters and pioneering hydrogen technology, to our new factory in Texas. As part of that next chapter, I’m delighted that my son George will become joint chairman of JCB.”
Lord Bamford, who retired from the House of Lords in 2024, was born on the day JCB was founded in 1945 and succeeded his father as chairman and managing director at the age of 30.
He led the company’s export drive into Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1979 he set up the business’s first overseas operation in India, which is now its biggest market.
JCB says it is the first construction equipment company in the world to bring a fully approved hydrogen-fuelled combustion engine to market. In August, the JCB Hydromax, driven by Wing Commander Andy Green, averaged 406.32mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. The company said the run made it the fastest hydrogen-powered vehicle of any kind, a record subject to ratification by the FIA, motorsport’s governing body.
JCB Group Holdings is a Swiss company ultimately controlled by the Bamford family, which also owns Daylesford Organic, the food, garden and homeware business known for its farm shop in the Cotswolds.
