Stephen O'Malley

Operating across the UK, Civic Engineers has studios in Manchester, London, Glasgow and Leeds. The practice was an early advocate of climate responsible design principles and works to create inspirational structures and places that have a positive impact on society and the environment.

The company has had significant success since its foundation more than nine years ago, recording 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.

In its most recent accounts, for the financial year ending February 2022, the practice reported £10.7 million turnover and approximately £1 million profit, which has enabled significant reinvestment in the business. These positive results provide valuable working capital and financial resilience, especially in light of the economic headwinds we are currently facing.

From the 12 people in the team at its foundation, the practice has increased its headcount to 162 employees. It has worked hard to address the gender imbalance in engineering, 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, Civic Engineers is changing the way it’s structured and managed to better reflect its operational scale and allow the creation of systems to continue to support the delivery of a greater variety of high quality projects.

The practice has created a parent company, 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 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 said: “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 for Civic Engineers, the firm has appointed Dominic Miller as a non-executive director.

Mr 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.

Mr Miller said: “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 Civic Engineers to have an even greater impact.”

Mr O’Malley added: “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.”