A look back at UKREiiF 2025: Our directors’ insights

In May our team attended UKREiiF, the annual industry event that connects the public sector, investors, developers, and construction supply chains to bring about regeneration and development across the UK.

During the jam-packed three-day event held in Leeds, our directors Kriston Harvey, Howel Morris, Kully Toor, and associate director Matt Harrison were representing our infrastructure engineering, geo-environmental engineering, structural engineering and transport planning capabilities. The team had the chance to network, build new and existing relationships with industry partners, and discuss ongoing sector challenges and opportunities during panel sessions and fringe events.

Speaking on the importance of the event, Matt Harrison said: “Put simply, it’s the opportunity to network with so many different people all in one place. Everyone who attends this event is there for broadly similar reasons, so those networking conversations are much easier to initiate.

“All four of us have got lots of leads to follow up on and I’m even due to complete a project that I secured directly through a meeting held during the event.”

Kriston Harvey said: “For me, it is the opportunity to network face-to-face with so many people from across the industry, whether that’s a catch-up with an existing contact or a conversation with a new connection. Numerous unplanned chance encounters have provided us with really solid leads to follow up on.”

“I think events such as UKREiiF always help to reinforce the fact that the industry remains very much relationship driven.”

The team attended a variety of panel sessions over the course of the event, including the Future of Housing – Power of Partnership session, during which Howel heard from leaders of Vistry, SNG and Octopus on how they are successfully collaborating to increase the speed, quality and sustainability of housing.

A key focus for the team were the housing and industrial and logistic sectors, particularly sessions covering upcoming projects in the East Midlands and West Midlands, which included Kriston visiting the East Midlands Pavilion for the Chesterfield Investment Map launch.

Alongside the events and chance encounters, the team mixed with key stakeholders during a variety of fringe events around the city. The busy programme saw the team attend events hosted by Carter Jonas, RLB, Frank Shaw, Pick Everard, Shed Masters, Cumming Group, Lovell Strategic Land and Edmond Shipway.

Discussing fringe events, Kully Toor said: “These types of events were particularly useful this year, as we bumped into existing clients and connected with a lot of new clients who we work closely with across our sector.

“Seeing new clients allows us to make new headway in certain sectors within our business, while catching up with existing clients is a great chance to hear about any future schemes or work that we ought to be aware of.”

Reflecting on their key takeaways from this year’s event, the team is ready to switch up their approach as they look ahead to UKREiiF 2026.

Kriston said: “We still see value in the event tickets, and a number of leads came from conversations within the main event space. But after our internal debrief we recognised that there are plenty of opportunities to hold meetings around the city and often people welcome the chance to get away from the busy event area for an hour or so.”

With that in mind, Howell Morris said: “Bumping into people and discussing work opportunities is the main benefit of UKREiiF, and so looking at how we could maximise what we can get from attending next year, we are going to focus more on the fringe events.”

Kully added: “As a business, we are going to encourage more staff to attend the fringe events where likeminded people and professionals in similar sectors of work are attending. This should not only create new opportunities for us but contributes to the professional development of our curious and talented team.”

Matt concluded: “This year’s event has reinforced the need to maintain good relationships with people through direct face-to-face meetings. The conversations we have can lead to new opportunities, ideas and direction. Those conversations also provided some useful market intelligence and reassurances that many of our own business objectives and challenges are shared by others too.”

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