ICE Strategy Session - Future of civil engineering: delivering differently to deliver better

Ed McCann

Past President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. A highly experienced project director Ed is currently working with major infrastructure clients to improve productivity and carbon performance in their programs. Expedition Engineering's Project Director for the multi-award winning London 2012 Velodrome and the Infinity Bridge. Particular skills in strategic consultancy, feasibility studies and design. He is passionate about developing talent in the industry with quality training and education, a passion that led him to become the co-creator of the Constructionarium. This non profit organisation delivers education and training to students and professionals across the built environment sector. He is also a co-founder of the Get It Right Initiative which aims to reduce errors in the industry.
 
He was fundamental in growing Expedition from a startup to Building Magazine’s Engineering Consultant of the Year in 2012. As a senior director at Expedition, Ed provides invaluable leadership and experience to our organisation.
 
He is technical, an excellent communicator, enthusiastic, and has a deep understanding of the construction process. He is particularly skilled in strategic consultancy, feasibility studies, and design. As a respected thought leader, Ed is often invited to speak at various events, write articles, and deliver lectures, and has also made television programmes on civil engineering

Hayley Jackson

Hayley graduated with a First-Class Honours master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Nottingham in July 2018, receiving the Golden Jubilee and Chris Maxwell Prize for her significant contribution to the department throughout her degree. She was an Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Undergraduate QUEST Scholar, sponsored by Taylor Woodrow from September 2014-2018, completing three summer placements on Victoria Dock Portal and Whitechapel Station, both part of Crossrail and the M5 Junction 4a-6 Smart Motorway Upgrade.

In July 2023, Hayley moved into a site agent role with Coffey delivering water infrastructure projects across the Severn Trent Framework, including a reservoir repair in the Peak District and a new pipeline in Nottingham.

Hayley joined ICE East Midlands Graduates and Students Committee in September 2016 as secretary, being elected as vice chair and chair in consecutive years until October 2019. Most recently, Hayley was selected by Paul Sheffield as one of his ICE President’s Future Leaders for 2019-20 and continues to be involved in regional and national committees.

Katherine Bew

Mark Enzer OBE FREng

A former chief technology officer at Mott MacDonald, Mark Enzer advises the company’s key clients on digitalisation and broader industry transformations. He was previously director of the University of Cambridge’s Centre for Digital Built Britain, where he led the national digital twin programme. A champion of outcomes-focused systems thinking, the circular economy and collaborative delivery models in the built environment, Enzer is a visiting professor at both Cambridge and Imperial College London. He is also a member of the prime minister’s Council for Science and Technology.

David Richards

David is professor in ground engineering and from August 2018 – August 2023, head of the School of Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton.

Technical interests include the geotechnical aspects of ageing infrastructure, large-scale field monitoring, the engineering behaviour and characterisation (pre and post processed) of landfill wastes, and the mechanical characterisation of chalk using CT imaging techniques and cyclic simple shear tests.

He has undertaken detailed studies into the rate loading effects of electricity transmission tower (shallow) footing systems involving both scaled physical modelling techniques in a geotechnical centrifuge and through field monitoring.

He has more recently addressed Overhead Line Electrification foundation design issues that significantly contributed to the GWEP upgrade cost increases and eventual project scope reduction.

He was PI for the £26M BEIS/EPSRC funded UKCRIC National Infrastructure Laboratory on the UoS Boldrewood Campus and UKCRIC Coordination Node (CN) director working to support a networked suite of national research test facilities to undertake fundamental research related infrastructure performance, resilience and renewal.

Teaching covers all aspects of geotechnics and foundations with particular interests in the broad aspects of engineering design. Working with industrial collaborators and recent graduates, he leads the civil engineering Part 1 Constructionarium located at the National Construction College, Norfolk.

David was awarded a Gledden Senior Visiting Fellowship by the University of Western Australia, Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems in 2001.

He is a co-recipient of the IMechE Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal and the John F Alcock Memorial Prize, 2007, an ICE Telford Premium, 2009 and the ICE Curtin Medal, 2016 and Geotechnical Research Medal, 2003.

Andrew McNaughton

With 40 years’ experience in the infrastructure sector, Andrew McNaughton has held senior project management and executive positions at Systra, Kier Group and Balfour Beatty, where he served as CEO in 2013-14. 

After joining the Atomic Weapons Establishment as a non-executive director in 2021, McNaughton became executive director of the firm’s capital programme, taking responsibility for delivering its infrastructure investment projects.

In 2022, he was appointed adjunct professor at the John Grill Institute for Project Leadership at the University of Sydney. 

A Fellow of both the Royal Academy of Engineering and the ICE, McNaughton has served as a vice president of the latter, which named him Civil Engineering Manager of the Year in 2002 for his work on the Channel tunnel rail link. 

In 2020, he chaired a research project on the institution’s behalf that culminated in A Systems Approach to Infrastructure Delivery – a report that was welcomed across the sector. 

Mark Coates

A former quantity surveyor, Mark Coates started out in the construction industry more than 35 years ago. He has worked for organisations including Crossrail, Highways England, ICI, the Olympic Delivery Authority, Thames Water and United Utilities.

At Bentley Systems, Coates advises government and business decision-makers around the world on the benefits of digital transformation. He has worked on a range of infrastructure projects over the past 15 years, advising asset owners on the best technologies to use to optimise what these deliver under the given budgetary and scheduling constraints.

Coates chairs the international forum of industry body British Water and is a member of the Digital Twin Hub’s strategic board. He sits on the Institute of Government and Public Policy’s advisory board and the ICE’s Inspiring Engineering Excellence community advisory board.

Coates is also a trustee of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors and a member of its council of management.