John is a long-standing Director of the Robert Bird Group, having joined the Australian offices in 1999 before moving to the London office as a founding member in 2003.  His experience covers a wide range of structure types and sectors including residential, commercial, retail, hospital, research and public buildings, heritage, wharf and offshore structures, airports, rail infrastructure, forensic engineering and advanced analysis.  He has served as RBG project director for recent major projects including Battersea Power Station, Abu Dhabi International Airport Midfield Terminal and the London Bank Station Capacity Upgrade.

John has a passion for the application of digital technology and advanced engineering within the Construction industry.  He established and oversees the RBG Advanced Technical Services group, providing practical solutions to the most challenging engineering problems.  Technical experience includes undertaking and overseeing parametric design optimisation, construction stage analysis of major structures, offshore construction, structural vibration, blast analysis, and non-linear FEA.

John has had a longstanding interest in tidal energy technology and has been involved in a number of world-first projects in this sector.  Most recently, John was the RBG Project Director for the MeyGen Phase 1A turbine support structures which won the 2017 IStructE award for “Structures in Extreme Conditions” and the 2018 NCE100 award for “Excellence in Alternative Energy”.  John is also a member of the UK shadow panel contributing to development of the IEC code for Marine Energy Devices

John is also a member of the editorial panel for the ICE Buildings and Structures journal and is part of the UK Working Group contributing to the next generation of Structural Steel Eurocodes.