At a ceremony that bucked usual built environment trends, an all-female presentation team championed the best people, initiatives and companies from across the industry and presented the winners of the ACE 2019 Consultancy & Engineering Awards.

The winners, chosen by a panel of expert industry judges headed by Roger Bailey of Tideway, were announced at ACE’s black-tie dinner on 6 June. The event, hosted by CBRE’s Amanda Clack, and AECOM’s Charlotte Jones, herself the winner of last year’s Apprentice of the Year award, featured Heathrow’s Emma Jane Houghton, Huda As’ad of the Infrastructure Projects Authority, the DfT’s Catherine de Marco OBE, Dr Tauni Lanier of Eco-Capital, and Georgia Hughes of Arcadis, and chair of the ACE Emerging Professionals group.

ACE Chief Executive Hannah Vickers challenged attendees to spot the difference between the ACE’s awards and every other industry event they had attended, saying: “To those of you who say  there aren’t enough women in the industry or you just can’t find female speakers, I’m sorry, but you’re just not moving in the right circles. Try harder. 

Vickers also challenged attendees to use every business situation and opportunity to develop and celebrate the success of staff at every level.

“Instead of focusing on the usual corporate entertainment for tonight’s celebration, we felt it more productive and intuitive to invest that money in further training and development for our co-host this evening, Charlotte Jones of AECOM. As business leaders, we should be supporting our teams from the ground up.

“I’d like to congratulate all of our winners and nominees, who have shown that the future of consultancy and engineering is incredibly exciting.” 

The winners of the 11 Consultancy & Engineering Awards were as follows: -

Future of Consultancy - Integrated Project Team of the Year, Public Sector Client
Arup

Future of Consultancy - Integrated Project Team of the Year, Private Sector Client
Winner - Arup – Welsh Water Alliance
Highly Commended - BuroHappold Engineering

Best UK Business Performance - micro organisation (<10 employees)
Winner - Rail Power Solutions

Best UK Business Performance - small/medium sized organisation (10+ employees but less than 250)
Winner - Geo-Environmental Services Ltd

Best UK Business Performance - large organisation (>250 employees)
Winner - Pick Everard
Highly Commended - Curtins

Future of Consultancy - Strategic Planning & Placemaking Champion
Winner - WYG
Highly Commended - Arup

Future of Consultancy - Data Led Asset Performance Champion
Winner - Amey Consulting

Environmental Initiative of the Year
Winner - IMC Social & Environmental Safeguarding Team - Freetown Landfill Feasibility Study
Highly Commended – Mott MacDonald - Embedding PAS2080 across a global business

Emerging Professional Employer of the Year
Winner - WSP
Highly Commended – IMC Worldwide & Stantec

Emerging Professional of the Year
Winner - Philippa Jefferis – IMC Worldwide
Highly Commended - Elizabeth Side – Jubb Consulting Engineers Limited

Apprentice of the Year
Winner - Elliott Webb - Arup
Highly Commended - Willow-Athena Hempell – WSP