To celebrate International Women in Engineering this Tuesday we are profiling some of the amazing women in our office.

Nina Heavyside joined Davies Maguire in February 2016, becoming Associate Director in November 2017. She has worked on a huge diversity of projects throughout her career, including large scale residential schemes, Facebook’s Iconic data centres and prominent buildings at Paternoster Square and Wimbledon Tennis Club.

She has a passion for detail, not just how the engineering can enhance and complement the aesthetic but the practicalities of how our designs can be built and developed. Nina’s individual style and approach has won accolades from clients, architects, and contractors.

At Davies Maguire she has built up our Construction Engineering sector, enjoying the challenge of taking engineering back to first principles and reinventing project delivery with innovative design solutions to give Contractors the cutting edge when it comes to programme delivery.  Recent projects include Damac tower, Vauxhall, where top down basement construction, doughnut slabs and a steel grillage supporting the initial 20-storeys of the central concrete core gave the frame contractor a great head start on site.

Nina strongly believes that the Construction Industry needs to attract more women, and as consultants our greatest opportunity to influence diversity within the construction industry and promote engineering as a career is via early school engagement.

Her focus in the last few years has been on encouraging more young women into the industry, breaking down preconceptions, encouraging them to leave their options open as long as possible, taking science A-levels, promoting the benefits of unlimited career paths/options, flexibility, creating a real opportunity to shape our world etc.  Nina is busy this week collating an introductory video on engineering for a school’s virtual career’s fair and will be taking part in Q&A webinar sessions.

As important as addressing gender representation, is encouraging greater diversity within the construction industry, particularly into the professional/technical roles.  Davies Maguire are creating opportunities for social mobility and greater accessibility to construction industry careers, through support, raising awareness, mentoring, placements, internships, and apprenticeships alongside the Social Mobility Foundation (https://www.socialmobility.org.uk/). It is all about getting talented individuals, regardless of gender, social or ethnic background onto university courses or on the right track into the industry if university is not their preferred route.