About Constructing Excellence

Constructing Excellence is the place for leading organisations and individuals with a role in shaping and delivering a better built environment to come together, share knowledge, insight and approaches.  The insight gained enables them to implement solutions that will improve the performance of their businesses, their projects and the built environment.

 

What is Constructing Excellence?
  • Constructing Excellence is an industry movement that operates at a national, regional and local level throughout the UK.
  • Constructing Excellence brings together people and organisations from all disciplines and positions in the supply chain. Together, they collaborate to deliver a better built environment.
  • Constructing Excellence focuses on the commercial and cultural aspects of industry change, leaving trade bodies and institutions to focus on in-depth technical issues.
  • The diversity of stakeholders engaged across the movement provides a unique forum to unlock progress.

 

Constructing Excellence aims to bring about a construction industry delivering better outcomes through:
  • Long term collaborative delivery models
  • Strategic procurement
  • Technology and innovation
  • Inclusive knowledge exchange for continuous improvement

5 Pillars of the Constructing Excellence Strategy

Empowering Members

Members underpin the Constructing Excellence movement. The diversity of membership in terms of types of organisation and professional disciplines is a key enabler of Constructing Excellence’s success. This will be strengthened through:

  • Actively engaging members and working with members to scope and define programmes of activities that add value for members and align with Constructing Excellence’s vision.
  • Creating a clear membership proposition that attracts and retains high-quality members, supporting them to drive better culture and commercial advantage.
  • Attracting and recruiting diverse new members that will enhance the movement and help Constructing Excellence achieve its vision.
  • Ensuring that organisations engage at the right level within the Constructing Excellence movement.

KPIs: New Members; Member Retention; Member Engagement; Growth across the Movement

Driving Engagement & Influence

Constructing Excellence operates within a wider built environment ecosystem. Influencing change and collaborating with others is critical to achieving our objectives. We will achieve this through:

  • Positioning Constructing Excellence in the right places to the right individuals who can help unlock the potential of the movement.
  • Identifying and prioritising the organisations and individuals we need to engage and influence to drive progress and change.
  • Establishing engagement plans for each priority organisation and group.

KPIs: Prioritisation of stakeholders; priority stakeholder engagements; partnerships and joint working

Delivering Insight & Inspiration

Members engage with Constructing Excellence to gain insight into emerging best practice and collectively address challenges. Constructing Excellence aims to provide its members with the inspiration and know-how to effect change in their organisations, projects and programmes through:

  • Translating the intelligence gained in meetings, events and the awards programme into actionable insight for members.
  • Leveraging the research and knowledge base within BRE and the wider research and innovation community.
  • Investigating mechanisms to enable members to share and access data and insight.
  • Establishing mechanisms to ensure knowledge is shared effectively across the Constructing Excellence movement and more widely across the built environment industry to drive adoption and impact.

KPIs: Knowledge sharing strategy; online and social media engagement; researchers engaged

Nurturing Future Talent

A sustainable industry requires a pipeline of developing and emerging talent.  Attracting and retaining talented and skilled individuals is a huge challenge for the construction industry.  Constructing Excellence is nurturing and accelerating the progress of future leaders with Generation4Change:

  • Supporting and meaningfully engaging Generation4Change with the wider Constructing Excellence movement.
  • Listening to future leaders and finding ways to ensure their voices are heard across the movement and industry.
  • Creating development pathways for Generation4Change leaders to transition into leadership roles across the movement and wider industry.

KPIs: Implement Generation4Change strategy, Level of support and engagement with Generation4Change

Strengthening Governance

Effective governance creates the foundations and leadership to ensure clarity, consistency and quality across the Constructing Excellence movement.  Constructing Excellence will put mechanisms in place to unlock its potential through:

  • Building on recent governance changes to strengthen communication within the movement.
  • Implementing the behavioural framework to encourage the right values and behaviours across the movement.
  • Exploring opportunities to enhance value recognition and reward mechanisms across the movement.

KPIs: Engagement across the movement; Develop a plan to unlock collaboration across the movement

We provide members with insight into how emerging technologies
or legislation can impact their future businesses.

We work with our members to demonstrate the art of the possible,
showcasing where are members are pushing boundaries
on better delivery.

We look at how others are practically implementing best
practice in their own organisations and projects.

Membership

Our members set our agenda and are the driving force behind our movement.

Members use our groups and forums to explore key issues impacting the industry right now and to drive change across construction. We provide regular opportunities for members to to share, learn from and network with each other and encourage engagement with the varied events we host.

View our Membership Document to find out more, or visit our Membership page.

Who we are

Constructing Excellence is a national movement, supported by Regional Partners across the UK. We work collaboratively towards a common purpose and ensure inclusivity with support from the CE Behavioural Framework.

Constructing Excellence

Alison Nicholl

Position: Head of Constructing Excellence
Categories: The National Team

Alison Nicholl

Head of Constructing Excellence

Constructing Excellence

Jack Cook

Position: Senior Estimator, F. Parkinson, & G4C National Co-chair
Categories: Board of Management

Jack Cook

Senior Estimator, F. Parkinson, & G4C National Co-chair

Constructing Excellence

Antoinette Campbell

Position: Membership Coordinator
Categories: The National Team

Antoinette Campbell

Membership Coordinator

Constructing Excellence

Catriona Lingwood

Position: (Chair, CE Regional Network)
Categories: Board of Management

Catriona Lingwood

(Chair, CE Regional Network)

Constructing Excellence

Phil Wilbraham

Position: BRE Trust Chair
Categories: Annual Conference 2017, Annual Conference 2018, Board of Management

Phil became BRE Trust’s Chairman in 2021. Prior to that he joined Heathrow in 2003 and became Expansion Programme Director in 2017 accountable for delivering Heathrow’s third runway along with the infrastructure to support it. Previously as Development Director, Phil was accountable for all the Capital works at Heathrow. As Eastern Campus Programme Director, Phil, was accountable for the delivery of the airport’s new Terminal 2. This £2.5bn programme has provided passengers with a new, ‘state of the art’, terminal.

Before Terminal 2, Phil led the completion of the £4.3bn construction of Terminal 5 and prior to that he led the £350 million Terminal 5 Landside Development Project which included the successful completion of the Twin Rivers Diversion and M25 Spur ahead of programme and under budget.

Phil was previously Director of Civil Engineering with TPS Consult, where he was involved in private and public sector schemes from feasibility stage through to design, construction and completion. This included working for BAA on Terminal 5 and many other projects at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, as well as with many other clients. Phil has also worked both overseas and in the UK as a civil engineer for DHV and Mott MacDonald.

Phil Wilbraham

BRE Trust Chair

Phil became BRE Trust’s Chairman in 2021. Prior to that...

Constructing Excellence

Sophie Bloye

Position: Insight and Engagement Coordinator
Categories: The National Team

Sophie Bloye

Insight and Engagement Coordinator

Constructing Excellence

Vince Lydon

Position: Managing Director, McLaren (Co-Chair of Constructing Excellence)
Categories: Board of Management

Vince Lydon is one of the UK’s most experienced Construction Management
leaders, with a four-decade career delivering some of the country’s most
complex and high-profile schemes. His portfolio includes The Peninsula Hotel,
Battersea Power Station Phase 3 and the Olympic Village – projects that set
new standards in technical delivery and stakeholder coordination. Vince has
held senior roles at Lendlease, Balfour Beatty and Sir Robert McAlpine, where
he was Deputy Managing Director for London. He is now Managing Director of
McLaren’s Construction Management and Specialist Projects division, where
he champions collaborative delivery models that unlock value, reduce risk and
raise performance across the built environment.

Vince Lydon

Managing Director, McLaren (Co-Chair of Constructing Excellence)

Vince Lydon is one of the UK’s most experienced Construction...

Constructing Excellence

Lucy Howard

Position: UK Major Bids Lead, Turner & Townsend (Co-Chair of Constructing Excellence)
Categories: Board of Management

Lucy has 25 years’ experience from construction to work winning to driving industry change.

Since 2013 Lucy’s focus is programme and project management consultancy with Turner & Townsend to maximise outcomes delivered from clients’ assets; including London Overground, Network Rail, Heathrow Express and Heathrow Airport. Progressing from Senior PM to Operations lead for the southern region, to Transport Sector Lead, to UK Head of Infrastructure Markets, to UK Major Bids Lead. She works with sector, service, and regional experts to arm our team with the best of industry innovation for clients across Infrastructure, Real Estate, Advisory, Energy & Natural Resources and Defence.

Lucy is active in industry with Project 13 since 2017 with the Infrastructure Client’s Group as Development Board member and co-chair of the Capable Owner workstream. She contributes to the Institution of Civil Engineers on Productivity and produced the Programmes with Purpose report with CBI. Lucy regularly contributes to debates on infrastructure; diverse thinking (particularly neurodiversity); and mental resilience.

Originally from the North-East of England, in her early career she studied Civil Engineering at Imperial with experiences in nuclear, residential and upgrading the Albert Hall. Graduating to the Kings Cross redevelopment and East London Line Viaduct reinstatement, she was NCE Graduate Civil Engineer of the year and quickly chartered. By 26 she was leading South Quay DLR station construction, chairing Constructing Excellence’s G4C, moving on to improving her division’s work winning rate for major projects.

Lucy Howard

UK Major Bids Lead, Turner & Townsend (Co-Chair of Constructing Excellence)

Lucy has 25 years’ experience from construction to work winning...

Constructing Excellence

Sandra Janik

Position: G4C National Co-Chair
Categories: Board of Management, G4C National

Sandra is currently holding the role of a Project Manager (Real Estate) at Turner & Townsend, a global consultancy company that serves clients in real estate, infrastructure, and natural resources sectors. Her career journey commenced in the realm of architecture, leading to acquisition of a Bachelor’s degree from Manchester School of Architecture.

Sandra’s passion for shaping environments prompted her transition into project management. With a dedicated focus on the healthcare industry, Sandra is committed to reshaping the landscape of healthcare facilities in the UK. She firmly believes in the transformative power of well-designed spaces to enhance the quality of healthcare services. Sandra was involved in several notable schemes in her architectural and project management endeavours, including the Greater Manchester Major Trauma Hospital, a new trauma hospital designed to ensure patients with life-threatening injuries receive a timely treatment. She is now involved in Wave0 and Wave 1b portfolio programme delivery for the New Hospital Programme (NHP), a UK government initiative to rebuild and modernize hospitals across the country.

Recognised in 2023 as the New Professional of the Year for the North West region, Sandra has also supported the Save Construction Initiative ‘’Not Just Men in Muddy Boots’’ with the aim to support tackling skills shortage and promote careers in construction. Advocating for greater diversity and career accessibility within the sector.

Sandra Janik

G4C National Co-Chair

Sandra is currently holding the role of a Project Manager...

Governance

Strategy Board: provide strategic leadership and direction for the overall Constructing Excellence Movement.

Constructing Excellence Board: bring together the core elements of the movement and drive the strategy across the movement.

National Members Steering Group: an online forum to bring national members together to share views and issues that impact them.

-The Constructing Excellence Groups, ECI, Gold Standard Task Group and Value Toolkit Steering Group feed into the Members Steering Group. 

CERP (Regional Partnership): drives consistency and continuous improvement across regional delivery.

-The CE Local Clubs feedback through CERP. 

G4C: a committee of national and regional G4C reps aiming to drive forward G4C movement.

Our History

We have a strong heritage dating back to the 1990s Latham and Egan reports and our more recent publications Never Waste a Good Crisis and Infrastructure in the New Era,  We have been delivering best-practice and knowledge transfer for more than 20 years.* In August 2016 we became part of the BRE group of companies.

*Constructing Excellence was formed in 2003 when the following bodies merged: Reading Construction Forum, Design Build Foundation, Construction Best Practice Programme, Movement for Innovation, Local Government Task Force, Rethinking Construction, BE, Construction Clients Group.