Our history

Founded in 1988 in the South East of England. At the time, the construction industry in the South East was buoyant. The Channel Tunnel was being built and a consultant seconded staff to Kent CC to help with peaks in workload.

Staff numbers increased and several clients were prepared to release packages of work to Aspen to complete remotely as they had neither the resources nor the accommodation themselves in-house.

By 1996, 75% of the fee income was generated by the secondment operation, the other 25% being generated by the in-house consultancy. Services were being provided in many areas across England and the management structure had expanded to include Area Managers working for Regional Managers.

In November 1996, Aspen took over the UK interest of a multi-disciplinary, multi-national Dutch-based company who, some years earlier, had sought to get a foothold in the UK market and had acquired John Burrow & Partners and Trevor Crocker & Partners. In the early ‘90s, like many other consultancies in the UK, they had started to struggle with market conditions and were looking to offload the UK part of the business. This was when the deal with Aspen was struck.

To this point in time, Aspen Associates had provided very few secondment services outside England. That was to change in 2000 when an Edinburgh-based Structural Engineering practice joined the Aspen Consulting Group. That acquisition was used to launch the secondment operation in Scotland.

The next major change happened in December 2001 when the Aspen Consulting Group was acquired by Waterman Group.

Waterman had been founded as a Structural Engineering practice in London in 1952. Its growth, both organically and by acquisition, had seen it become 750 strong by 2001. Waterman’s discipline base was different to Aspen’s, as was the client base which was predominantly private sector. The Waterman Group was looking to diversify its discipline and client base to offset the risk volatility associated with the private sector building industry. Hence the attraction of Aspen.

The enlarged Waterman Group became 1,150 strong. The business of Aspen Associates, re-badged Waterman Aspen as a separate company within the Waterman Group, has continued in much the same way as it always had. Similarly the consultancy, re-badged Waterman Burrow Crocker, later Waterman Civils then Waterman Transport & Development, has continued to be the Group Company that provides civil and transportation consultancy services.

Within Waterman Aspen, the management structure undertook a title change in 2003 to align itself with recognised titles throughout the rest of the Group. Regional Managers, responsible for Profit Centres within Waterman Aspen, became Divisional Directors. More senior Area Managers, responsible for geographical areas within Profit Centres, became Associate Directors. The Area Manager title was retained for those staff stepping onto the WA managerial ladder for the first time, generally having lesser relevant experience than the Associate Directors.

A further title change took place in Autumn 2014. Again, to tie into Group titles, the Divisional Directors were re-badged as Regional Directors. Several of the newly-titled Regional Directors were then given their old Divisional Director title back. Whereas Regional Directors primarily concentrate on their local business, the Divisional Directors have a wider remit.

In July 2017, Waterman Group PLC was taken over by the Japanese Engineering Consultancy, CTI Engineering Co Ltd. Waterman Group de-listed from the London Stock Exchange as a result. In Japan, CTI’s main sectors of work are Water and Land, Transport and Urban, and Environmental and Social.

The key word for the service Waterman Aspen provides is “Flexibility”. Secondments can be for as long or as short a period as the client demands. Our shortest secondment has been for providing site supervision coverage whilst one of the client’s own staff was away for two days. This is not the norm though. Some secondments have lasted for well over ten years. Anything in between is possible and average secondments last for several months, at least.