People

By thinking collectively, we learn from insights and innovations within our teams.  We also draw on the depth of knowledge and experience of the Trust.  We value collaboration highly, which means we experiment and evolve new ways of working together – within the Trust, and externally with clients and partners.

The advent of hybrid working has brought new challenges and opportunities, but the oversight of every person and every project remains a critical part of our processes.

We like to celebrate success, so it’s never hard to find a reason to come together for a drink or a meal.   We also like to get together creatively, and regularly join forces on our Useful Giving projects.  Sometimes we share ideas on design retreats in the woods, and twice a year all our Trustees and benefactors meet up to remember and reflect on why we do what we do.

Our team also enjoys breakfast yoga, all-weather touch rugby, walks along the River Thames, lunchtime table tennis, family picnics, charity races – in fact, anything positive and low impact that makes us feel good about the day.

As part of our Trust ethos, we believe strongly in coaching and developing every person at the Trust.  For our young graduates this starts with working towards ICE Chartership, but everyone gets involved in our weekly lunchtime programme of talks and design reviews so we never miss a chance to learn from each other.

More formal learning is driven by our Future Skills Programme, which is set to achieve Carbon Literacy Platinum level.

We are committed to sharing our knowledge across the construction industry, including through our well-publicised initiatives, such as the Get it Right Initiative.  This is an industry analysis and report, leading to training programmes eliminating errors in construction.

Our engineers sit on key industry panels and speak regularly at webinars and events across the UK; we are a small company, but you can see how far our influence reaches when you Meet the Team.

Many of us also teach Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes around the UK, and we’re proud to have pioneered the not-for-profit  Constructionarium.  This is a real-life learning programme that has taught over 13000 engineering undergraduates since it began in 2004.

In 2021 we ran an 8-week design programme for Schools 21 with a group of sixth form students to promote widening participation in design and engineering.  As is often the case with EDI, we learnt as much from the students as they did from us.