W.S.

Atkins
By Nicola Pellow
Plan, design, enable

Sir William Atkins

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Contents
CONTENTS....................................................................................................... .....................3

INTRODUCTION........................................................................................ ..........................4

IN THE BEGINNING.................................................................................... ........................4

SIR WILLIAM ATKINS.....................................................................................................................5

KEY DATES ..................................................................................................................................6

ATKINS TODAY.......................................................................................... ..........................7

ATKINS STRUCTURE.......................................................................................................................8
TRANSPORT....................................................................................................................................8
DESIGN AND ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS...............................................................................................9
MANAGEMENT AND PROJECT SERVICES.............................................................................................10
EQUITY INVESTMENT......................................................................................................................10
SPANNING THE GLOBE..................................................................................................................11
AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS........................................................................................................11
ATKINS’ STAFF............................................................................................................................12
ATKINS’ CHARITIES......................................................................................................................12

THE FUTURE........................................................................................... ...........................13

REFERENCES.......................................................................................... ...........................14

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Introduction
Today, Atkins is a well known firm all across the world. It has around 17,000
employees and an annual turnover of around £1.4bn1. It has offices across the
globe and has won numerous awards. It takes great care of its’ staff and
supports a range of charities.

Although it has expanded greatly in the past 70 years, it has not altered its
core values.
“Atkins was started as a family business and is still run that way today” says
Claire Renwick, who has been employed at Atkins for just over 3 years.
So let us look back at how Atkins began and how it has grown over the years.

In the Beginning
The engineering practice of WS Atkins & Partners was established in 1938 by
Mr WS Atkins, with offices in Westminster.

Originally, his main business was London Ferro. They were working at Barry
on a magnesite plant and met an architect, Donald Hamilton. With another
man named Pickett, he had an idea for a retractable ford to be placed in
airfield runways, the roof of which could be raised on an enemy landing and
the oncoming planes sprayed with machine gun fire. He asked Mr Atkins if he
would develop the idea for him. Hamilton did not want the name of London
Ferro involved, so Mr Atkins formed a small practice to do the design work,
transferring to it the engineering work he was doing for others. Thus WS
Atkins & Partners came into being. Nearly all the engineering work WSA & P
did was in Steel. Work came in from architects who had previously used
Smith Walker, and had looked elsewhere when S. W. Ltd was sold.

In its early years, the practice specialised in civil and structural engineering
design work. After the war the scope and scale of services provided to clients
increased rapidly. In addition to the work in consulting engineering, Atkins
has developed specialist services in planning, engineering sciences,
architecture and project management2.

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Sir William Atkins
Sir William Atkins was one of the century’s most eminent engineers. He was
born in London in February 1902 and was educated at the Coopers’ Company
School.
During his apprenticeship to Sir Graham Wood he became a member of The
Institution of Civil Engineers. Within three years of his apprenticeship, he
was a fully fledged draughtsman. He remembers,
“One thing I discovered then was that I could clearly visualise what I was
designing. I could see the structure even before I started work on it, so that I
had the most elegant solution to put calculations to”.
He went on to University College London, where he graduated with honours
in 1925.

In 1934 he founded the business which later became The London Ferro
Concrete Company, and in 1945 RE Eagan Ltd3.

In 1959, the Le Marchant family sold Chobham Place estate and the house and
park were bought by Sir William Atkins. Passionately interested in
horticulture he set up the Round Pond Nursery in the old walled kitchen
garden, specialising in the micro-culture of plants4. This provided him with
the opportunity of remaining amongst the top group of experts in the field of
biotechnology.

Mr Atkins was awarded the CBE in 1966 and he received a knighthood ten
years later. In 1982 he became an Honorary Freeman of the Borough of
Epsom.
Sir William’s distinguished career saw him associated with most of the major
projects since the War, including the Drax Power Station, Selby Coalfield and
the Channel Tunnel project.

Until his death in the autumn of 1989, he was president of the Company.
He is remembered fondly by many of the staff at Atkins. Each Christmas Eve
he would walk around the offices and wish everybody a Merry Christmas.

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Key Dates

1957:
• WS Atkins and Partners purchased Woodcote Grove and new Office
accommodation was built on the site between 1958-1961. This later
became their main office5.

1986:
• WS Atkins Group decides to spin off consulting operations, including
WS Atkins & Partners as WS Atkins Consultants; the company's
remaining assets are regrouped under a separate company, Atkins
Holdings Ltd.
• Employees are given option to buy as much as 60 percent of the
company's shares.

1990:
• WS Atkins calls off first public offering after the outbreak of the Persian
Gulf War strands a number of its employees in Kuwait.

1996:
• WS Atkins Plc goes public on the London Stock Exchange; currently its
shares are at 1,007.00 p6.
• Company acquires quantity surveyor Faithful & Gould and establishes
Atmos Ltd. railroad subsidiary.

1997:
• Company acquires Opal Engineering from British Rail.

1998:
• Company acquires Silk & Frazier but fails attempted acquisition of
Bovis Construction.

1999:
• WS Atkins acquires McCarthy's Consulting Engineers, Lambert Smith
Hampton, and The Benham Companies.

2000:
• Company secures £1 billion, ten-year facilities management contract
with Telekom South Africa, the company's largest ever contract.

2001:
• WS Atkins acquires ScanRail from Danish National Railway and
Boward Computer Services7.

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Atkins Today
Atkins is the largest engineering consultancy in the UK, the largest
multidisciplinary consultancy in Europe and the third largest design company
in the world.
Their staff includes engineers, architects, surveyors, cost and project
managers, planners, management consultants, geologists and experts in IT,
telecommunications and environmental management8.

Atkins:
oPlans all aspects of its clients’ projects. This involves conducting studies
covering technical, logistical, legal, environmental and financial
considerations.

oDesigns optimal systems, infrastructures, processes, buildings and civil

structures. They develop cutting edge solutions and combine them with
tried and tested technologies to achieve an optimal result.

oEnables complex programmes, delivering one-off projects and managing

ongoing processes to reduce timescales, cost and disruption.

Atkins has grown considerably over the last few years as can be seen from the
graphs below9:

Atkins is doing well in each area of its business. The statistics for 2005 are
shown in the table below10.

Area Turnover
Design and Engineering Solutions £244m
Highways and Transportation £207m
Rail £188m
China and Middle East £44m
Management and Project Services £152m
Asset Management £59m
Lambert Smith Hampton £60m

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Atkins Structure
Today Atkins is composed of four main groups: Transport, Design &
Engineering Solutions, Management & Project Services and Equity
Investments. Each of these groups then divides further as can be seen in the
diagram below11.

Transport
This section encompasses Rail and Highways & Transportation.
Highways & Transportation provides a range of services ranging from front
end Transport planning studies and advice, through to the comprehensive
Design & Site supervision activities12.

Atkins Rail combines unique expertise across all the major rail disciplines;
o civil engineering
o control and systems
o electrification and plant
o property
o rail vehicle consultancy
with experience in every rail market heavy rail, light rail and metro, and
freight13.

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Design and Engineering Solutions
This covers a few areas:
o Water and Environment
This consultancy covers the whole life cycle from source to sea.
Typical projects include flood risk management, water supply and
wastewater programmes.
The Environment business helps clients focus on improving
environmental management and offer solutions at both a strategic
and operational level14.

o Engineering Solutions
This involves providing consultancy to four specialist sectors:
Defence, Oil & Gas, Telecommunications and Aerospace15.

o Design Solutions
This includes architecture, design, surveying, property management,
building services and structural engineering. Projects include
schools, universities, airports, government buildings, hotels and
commercial premises16.

o Design and Programme Management

Atkins manages complex large scale projects for the built
environment which requires high levels of resource management.
Often their projects are international such as Durrat Island, Riyadh
Landmark Tower and Pantai Mutiara Hotel17.

o Nuclear and Power

This is split up into Generation and Transmission & Distribution. It
draws on these core strengths to manage and construct new-build
and asset replacement projects18.

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Management and Project Services
This is partly made up of Faithful+Gould. Faithful+Gould is one of the
world’s largest project and cost management consultancies, employing over
2,000 staff, with a turnover in excess of £120 million 19. In the UK,
Faithful+Gould provides independent services in three key areas: consulting,
project management and commercial services20.

However, it also includes of:

o Management Consultancy
This focuses on helping clients to deliver and realise the value in
their strategy. They provide imaginative solutions utilising extensive
and proven methodologies, tools and techniques21.
o Asset Management
This supplies facilities management services to three major market
sectors; financial, leisure and retail, principally in the role of
managing agent22.

Equity Investment
The Equity Investments segment comprised Lambert Smith Hampton and our
interest in PPP/PFI Joint Ventures23. It has recently been announced that WS
Atkins has agreed to the sale of its UK-based property agency business
Lambert Smith Hampton Limited (‘LSH’) to De Facto 1489 Limited for an
enterprise value of £46.5 million, together with earn-out potential for a
further £10 million. The sale is subject to certain regulatory approvals and is
expected to complete before 31 July 200724.

Chief Executive Keith Clarke said:

"This is a significant transaction as we divest this non-core business. I wish
the management of LSH every success in taking the business forward. This
deal enables the Group to focus on its core businesses as it looks to further
develop capabilities in its principal areas of expertise."

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Spanning the Globe
Atkins has grown significantly since it began back in 1938. It now has offices
around the world in countries such as: Australia, Canada, China, India, South
Africa, and USA. Atkins also has offices throughout Europe and over 160 in
the United Kingdom25.

26

Most of the permanent staff are professionally or technically qualified. They

also speak a wide range of languages, which is just as well with the number of
offices abroad. The chances are that whichever country you are doing work in;
somebody at Atkins will be able to help you with the language. Languages that
people can speak range from French and German to Gujarati and Urdu27.

Awards and Achievements

Over the years Atkins has won many prestigious awards. Its’ recent
achievements include:
o Being named the most popular graduate employer in its sector for 2
years running28.
o Being named in the Sunday Times’ “20 Best Big Companies to Work
For 2007”29.
o Being named in the Times’ “Top 50 Companies Where Women Want to
Work 2006”30.
o Construction Consultant of the Year 200531.
Two years ago it also became one of 17 companies that are partnered with the
Power Academy scheme32.

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Atkins’ Staff
Atkins has won numerous awards because of how well it treats its staff.
Surveys are carried out annually so that management and senior management
can monitor staff satisfaction and act on feedback. The firm’s leadership
makes an effort to interact with staff, from working alongside them at
recruitment fairs to enjoying company social events. Staff say that senior
managers truly live the values of the organisation.

Staff feel that the company really tries to help them. A wide and flexible
portfolio of training courses is available to all employees. Management and
graduate development centres and senior manager development programmes
ensure that those staff who are ready for more responsibility are not
overlooked. Employees also feel that the experience they gain from the job is
valuable for their future.

Social activities include sailing, dragon boat racing, archery, theatre visits and
trips to France and Italy. Colleagues care for each other and have confidence
in each other’s abilities33.

Atkins’ Charities
As well as taking steps to become more environmentally-friendly, including
adopting a “green” tariff for electricity in all the UK businesses, the company
supports a number of charities. Last year’s nominated causes were:
o WaterAid
o Register of Engineers for Disaster Relief
o Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Association.
Atkins encourages its’ staff to make donations regularly from their wages and
organises events to fundraise for the charities34.

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The Future
Atkins has grown greatly in the past and looks all set to continue to do so.
With new offices being set up and evermore challenging jobs being taken on
the company has a lot to look forward to.

Atkins is taking steps to tackle the nuclear skills shortage. Faced with a
recognised skills shortage in the nuclear industry, the Atkins engineering
consultancy is partnering with the University of Surrey to develop a nuclear
training academy. Atkins has over the last 30 years become a major player in
the UK's nuclear industry, with particular interests in all aspects of
decommissioning and the sensitive issues associated with the disposal of
nuclear waste, as well as the huge potential in the new generation of nuclear
power stations35.

It has also been acknowledged that there is a great shortage of junior

engineers which is a big problem as many current engineers will be retiring in
the next 10 to 20 years. Atkins is putting a great deal of effort into making
sure its’ graduate scheme is one of the best in the industry to attract young
engineers. Becoming a partner of the Power Academy Scheme is another way
in which Atkins is investing in students studying engineering.

Atkins has also recently opened new offices in Bangalore. Their office at
Sharjah provides a range of professional design services in the following
markets:
o Building Services
o Structural
o Civil
o Geospatial
o Water
o IT Engineering Systems
o Geotechnical
o Aviation
o Oil and Gas
o Highways and Transportation
o Rail36
They have over 200 staff comprising of Design Engineers, CAD Staff and
Administration on their payroll37.

So with these and other great opportunities on the horizon, Atkins will
definitely continue to provide ‘everyday brilliance’.

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References
Each reference has the website used and the date that it was looked at.

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1
http://www.atkinsglobal.com/aboutus/atkinsataglance/ - 02/08/07
2
http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/aboutthecompany/ - 02/08/07
3
“Partners – Fifty Years of WSA & P”, Sir William Atkins C.B.E.,
4
http://www.gardenstrusts.org.uk/Archive/Chobham.html - 02/08/07
5
http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/data/locations/officelocations/15259/1913878/?version=1 – 13/08/07
6

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ATK.L – 16/08/07 at 9.39am

7

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/WS-Atkins-Plc-Company-History.html -
13/08/07
8

New Civil Engineer Consultants File, 2006; Swedish Federation of Consultant Engineers & Architects,
2005; Engineering News Record, 2006 – 16/08/07
9

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localdivisions/2582398/4969144/2589700/2590006/2595165/7439301_ws_a
tkins_plc_prelim.pdf - 13/08/07
10

Atkins Fact Book 2005 -

http://www.investis.com/atkinsglobal/finperf/presentations/factbook0506/2803.pdf - 16/08/07
11

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/businessdevelopment/4220/54809/1193643/4635244_companyorg_oct_04.p
pt - 08/08/07
12

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localgroups/1380816/ - 13/08/07
13

http://www.atkinsglobal.com/markets/rail/ - 13/08/07
14

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localunits/1643776/6622719/6760644/ - 13/08/07
15

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localunits/1643776/6622719/6760644/ - 13/08/07
16

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localunits/1643776/6622719/6760644/ - 13/08/07
17

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localunits/1643776/6622719/6760644/ - 13/08/07
18

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localunits/1643776/6622719/6760644/ - 13/08/07
19

http://www.fgould.com – 13/08/07
20

http://www.fgould.com/uk - 13/08/07
21

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localunits/1380826/1434277/7231437/?version=1 – 13/08/07
22

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localunits/1380820/ - 13/08/07
23

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localdivisions/2582398/4969144/2589700/6349994/6350005/7473124_atki
ns_annual_report.pdf - 13/08/07
24

http://ir.atkinsglobal.com/atkinsglobal/news/releases/archive/2007-06-26a/ - 13/08/07
25

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localdivisions/2582398/4969144/6421106/ - 07/08/07
26

http://www.atkinsdesign.com/html/contact.htm - 07/08/07
27

http://www.atkinsdesign.com/html/contact.htm - 07/08/07
28

http://www.atkinsglobal.com/careers/graduates/aboutus/atkinsscoopsgraduateemployerawar/ -
07/08/07
29

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/localdivisions/2582398/4969144/ - 02/08/07
30

http://www.atkinsglobal.com/careers/graduates/aboutus/weencouragevisionproblemsolvinga/ -
07/08/07
31

http://www.atkinsglobal.com/careers/graduates/aboutus/thesundaytimesbestbigcompaniesto/ -
07/08/07
32

http://www.iee.org/poweracademy/atkins.cfm - 02/08/07
33

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/best_100_companies/best_20_big_compa
nies/article1473470.ece - 07/08/07
34

http://bluepages.wsatkins.co.uk/aboutthecompany/1180649/6162772/?version=1 – 08/08/07
35

http://www2.theiet.org/oncomms/sector/power/SectionNews/Object/741AAAFD-A453-DE71-
C66058A11A1A7266 - 07/08/07
36

http://www.atkinsglobal.com/markets/india/ourwork/ - 09/08/07
37

http://www.naukri.com/gpw/atkins/index.htm - 09/08/07