As we look to the future, we are announcing a reorganisation of the business and broadened expertise on the board with the appointment of a new non-executive director. Since our foundation more than nine years ago, we have recorded growth in each successive year. This has accelerated in recent years as the investment, engineering and property sectors have embraced the ESG agenda and the need for more sustainability and human-centred design.

For the financial year ending February 2022, we recently reported £10.7m turnover and approximately £1m profit, which has enabled significant reinvestment in the business. These positive results provide valuable working capital and financial resilience for us, especially in light of the economic headwinds we are currently facing. From the 12 people in the team when we were founded, we now have an incredible  162 and we have worked hard to address the gender imbalance, recruiting a 50:50 split of male and female graduates and bringing the organisational balance up to 60:40.

As a result of this growth, we are changing the way we’re structured and managed to better reflect our operational scale and allow the creation of systems to continue to support the delivery of a greater variety of high quality projects.

To enable this, a parent company has been created, with a board made up of chief executive Stephen O’Malley, chief operating officer Julian Broster, a new chief financial officer and non-executive directors. The parent company has been incorporated as ‘Civic Life Ltd’ and the group will evolve around the name ‘Civic’, more information will be shared on this in due course. The creation of the company will allow the practice greater latitude to consider the strategic direction of the group, plus new complementary service offerings and other opportunities for growth so that its current and future clients can benefit from an increased variety of exceptional quality project work.

Chief executive, Stephen O’Malley, says: “When we first founded the company, our aim was to place the community at the heart of our processes and bring big benefits for the environment and neighbourhoods. This balance of interests is now mainstream, with digital innovation enabling very different lifestyles, accelerated by the pandemic causing people to reflect on their priorities. The growing confidence in these principles has meant that our deep rooted sustainability pedigree is now recognised and valued by a widening portion of the market and society.

“As a result of our successes, we needed to establish a new structure to help the business mature and continue its mission, while also delivering innovative solutions for our clients and maintaining high levels of satisfaction within our team. We intend to maintain our fantastic people culture while also having a major impact in the ways that only engineers can.”

To help with the restructure and new vision, we are pleased to welcome Dominic Miller as a non-executive director. Miller is a co-founder and former chief operating officer of Fishawack Health, a global commercialisation partner for the biopharmaceutical, medical technology, and wellness industries, predominantly based in the US and UK.

Dominic says: “I’m delighted to have joined Civic Engineers. The business has an impressive track record over the past 9 years and importantly it’s a practice that has brought its values to life as it strives to fulfil its vision. With the incredible portfolio of UK-wide projects and the strong culture that has been built amongst its diverse team, I’m looking forward to working with them to help the business grow and develop significantly and to enable them to have an even greater impact.”

Stephen adds: “It’s been fantastic to bring Dominic into the team. His experience of growing a company and bringing opportunities to fruition will be invaluable as we continue on our course.”