10 years: what we built, what we learned and why it matters

Inside James York's journey with his team

Ten years in Thames Valley: What we built, what we learned, and why it matters

By James York, Area Director, Morgan Sindall Construction – Thames Valley

When I think about our Thames Valley region turning ten, I don’t picture a spreadsheet or a balance line.

I picture a Saturday morning: sitting in the stands at a swimming gala, cheering my daughter on in a leisure centre our team delivered in the early days, then heading to her ice-skating lesson at an ice rink we also helped bring to life.

That’s the point of a local, decentralised business: the places we build are the places our families use.

It keeps us honest, proud, and relentlessly focused on doing the right thing for the people who live here.

Where it started: from fragile to functional

A decade ago our Thames Valley story began because we had to rebuild - properly.

Historic work out of an older regional structure had faltered; delivery was inconsistent and trust had been damaged.

When that office was closed down, I was asked to pick up the difficult jobs and rebuild a business with a local heartbeat across the Thames Valley.

We retained a core of seven people to get moving again and focused first on stabilising live work and restoring confidence by simply doing what we said we would do.

Reputation lags reality. For the first two to three years, attracting great people and supply chain partners was hard.

Our track record hadn’t yet caught up with our intent.

So we over-indexed on the basics: pick up the phone, communicate early, never go missing, run towards issues (including payment or programme problems) and sort them out face‑to‑face.

That’s how you rebuild trust in construction.

To match emerging local demand, we scaled quickly, from 7 to 78 people in 18 months, then did the hard yards of adding leadership and governance so the engine could run sustainably (and not just on adrenaline).

Growing up as a region: Slough, Oxford, and balance

We were initially Slough‑centric and it showed in the revenue profile.

As that tapered, we had to “learn to catch our own food” again, diversifying into other opportunities and getting onto the Oxford University framework, which was pivotal in a market that can be challenging to enter.

Success in Oxford came once again with over‑reliance on one market. So we set ourselves a target to rebalance, roughly half Oxford, half everywhere else across the Thames Valley, and that’s broadly where we’ve now landed.

Why do we keep offices in both Slough and Oxford when one would “functionally” do? Because presence signals commitment. Oxford is such an important city, our presence in the market allows serve surrounding area because we’re here for the long term, so we’re embedded in the local community, not just working in it.

The power of decentralisation: local people, local decisions

Morgan Sindall Construction’s decentralised model isn’t a slogan for us; it’s the operating system.

We make local decisions, adapt to local needs, and own the outcomes.

This applies to everything we do from pre-construction to customer care. It’s not a corporate mandate; it’s a Thames Valley solution that works for our stakeholders.

Decentralisation also means culture is not centrally issued; it’s locally authored. We’ve grown a culture built around three simple expectations:

Empowering people, relying on the performance or the person next to you, and no passengers

2. A “Michelin‑star, front‑of‑house” customer experience

3. Supporting and looking after each other, combined with open, candid feedback

Crucially, you can’t parachute customer experience in.

It’s created by the project teams who are there day‑to‑day, so we teach and coach the teams to think differently and to stay very close to customers, keeping that important laser focus on it.

What we build: unique, diverse, and proudly local

We don’t live off a steady “churn” of identical projects here.

Our portfolio is diverse by necessity and design: sewage pump stations, court re-roofing, civic centre refurbishments, listed university buildings and Passivhaus residential and science buildings - mostly one‑offs that force us to be creative and keep learning.

We’re proud of our customer experience scores (especially at pre‑construction, which is often the hardest phase) and we’re motivated far more by delivering an amazing experience rather than a flagship project.

Highs, lows, and the learning curve

Our first growth spurt felt like a gold rush: lots of fantastic work through the Slough Urban Renewal programme.

We had nine projects at on point and we could walk to them all from the office. This was never going to last for ever, but the “reality years” hit us with a slowdown, a sharper lens on true job performance, and even a break‑even year in 2019.

It forced us to mature and focus on better leadership, stronger governance, and a system for continuous improvement.

That system is simple and relentless: every year we set ambitious improvement commitments, knowing we’ll achieve around 70% if we’ve stretched ourselves enough.

Each “1% gain” compounds. What felt like burning problems five years ago are now routine; for example, we’re now driving the quality of our quality inspections. rather than whether they are done.

This progress doesn’t feel like anything on a day to day basis, but it compounds over time with the effect of a vastly different business 10 years on.

When I think about moments of pride, I’d probably think of these:

Delivering early, just to make a customer happy. On a major programme, our teams finished every phase ahead of schedule, unlocking an extra rental “turn” for the customer. Not because the contract told us to, but because we knew it mattered to them.
World‑class feedback on a highly secure scheme. We reinvented how we work secure environments, earning 10/10s across their customer experience metrics through preconstruction, and a relationship built on trust and professionalism.
The quiet wins. On a negotiated framework school project, we held the agreed cost plan from feasibility, through pre‑con and delivery. No drama, just disciplined leadership.
Teamwork in the tough moments. When someone raises a hand for help, I see five colleagues “swarm” the problem, reset, and carry on. Watching that happen without me asking them to do it is leadership at its best; shared by many.

Why are we celebrating ten years? Because we’ve built something stable, sustainable, and locally meaningful. We’ve gone from a fragile restart to a region that consistently creates good outcomes for customers and for our business, by keeping promises, communicating early, and obsessing over how people feel while we build for them. And yes, because my kids - and yours - use these places. That’s worth celebrating. I’m deeply grateful to our people, our supply chain, our customers, our consultants, and the communities we serve. You stuck with us, challenged us, and made us better. Without all of you we simply wouldn’t be in this position.

One decade, five lessons learned

Before I offer five key lessons from the last ten years, it’s worth saying this: none of what we’ve achieved in the Thames Valley came from a masterplan or a guaranteed pipeline.

It came from starting again, from fighting to rebuild trust, from learning to “catch our own food,” and from creating a business that’s shaped by local people for local places.

The journey hasn’t been linear. It’s been defined by setbacks, breakthroughs, hard conversations, small wins, and a relentless focus on giving people; customers, colleagues, communities, a better experience every year.

These five lessons (over the page) are the ones that have shaped us most as a business

Ten years on, we largely have the same leadership team, and I’m proud of what we’ve built: a stable, sustainable, high‑performing business that serves the Thames Valley with integrity and creativity.

But I’m even more proud of how we built it; together.

To our people, thank you. You’re the ones who ran toward the problems, who rebuilt trust, who created our culture, who delivered the experiences customers still talk about.

To our customers, communities, consultants, and supply chain partners: thank you for giving us the chance to prove ourselves, challenge ourselves, and grow alongside you.

What excites me most is that there is no finish line. This journey doesn’t end at ten years; it evolves.

There are new challenges to run toward, new experiences to elevate, new improvements to chase. If the first decade was about rebuilding, the next will be about refining, elevating, and compounding everything we’ve learned.

Let’s keep going. The future is where the real opportunity lies.

Run towards your biggest challenges

Whatever the challenge, proactive honesty has always made things better because issues don’t get smaller over time. Facing them head-on earned trust and that’s key for any business.

Obsess over the experience, not just the building

Yes, the asset is important, but it’s how we made the customer feel while we built it. That’s why we talk about a Michelin-star, laser-focus on customer experience.

Build a culture you can be proud of. And protect it

Hire obsessively, act quickly on performance, and create a no‑passengers, fully empowered team.

Improve 1% every day. Then do it again

The last decade has taught us that small, relentless improvements compound into something powerful. Small gains, relentlessly applied, transform a business. Keep raising the bar, especially when things are already good.

Shape the business to its place

Local people making local decisions always win. Tailor your approach to your patch, not the playbook.