It said it was starting to experience some delays to the award of exploration contracts, which combined with the fall in oil prices could impact operating profit growth in its Mission Critical Services business in 2015/16 by around 6 million pounds.

Babcock, whose largest customer is Britain's Ministry of Defence, said on Tuesday that overall it was continuing to see strong demand for its services through existing contracts, and bidding and business development activities remain buoyant.

It said its order book currently stood at around 20 billion pounds, and that it had a bid pipeline of around 13 billion, a new high for the group.

(Reporting by Li-mei Hoang, Editing by Paul Sandle)