Spencer Group, established in 1989, specialise in large engineering projects ranging from the design and build of green power stations, working across the UK rail network and building and maintaining complex suspension bridges. The company has an entrepreneurial spirit and a long history of delivering innovation in a variety of other sectors utilising its civil engineering expertise.
The business was founded by Executive Chairman, Charlie Spencer OBE from his home in Anlaby with just two employees. Today, Spencer Group employs over 400 people and has offices in London and Glasgow but its headquarters remain in Hull, East Yorkshire.
Spencer Group has found success by adopting an approach to ‘self-deliver’ all aspects of the engineering process from design through to delivery. This has proven highly successful on logistically challenging engineering projects, such as the £200m project ‘Energy Works’, an environmentally-friendly power plant on a 12-acre site on the east bank of the River Hull. It will be the first facility of its kind in the UK, using a combination of innovative renewable energy technologies that produce the most favourable results in terms of recycling and air quality.
The project is the largest privately funded power station of its type and will produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of 43,000 homes, by processing 240,000 tonnes of waste a year. Energy Works, which goes live in 2018, will deliver a renewable energy plant to Hull and will provide job opportunities to people in the city. The project has been awarded a grant of almost £20 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in recognition of the role it can play in encouraging further innovation in this field. In addition, private investors from around the world have funded the project leading to a £200m scheme.
The business also works extensively in the rail sector, designing and building rail stations and depots, this is particularly pertinent given the UK’s investment into rail electrification. The company is currently working on a highly complex tunnelling project at Finsbury Park station in central London, designing and delivering two 15metre deep shafts between Victoria and Picadilly in the London Underground network.
Locally, the company has delivered a number of projects, including remodelling Hull’s Paragon Station; Victoria Dock Lock; Millennium Bridge - The Deep; East Park Restoration; and Dehumidification on the main cables of the Humber Bridge.
The Humber Bridge project involved the use of a unique “Cable Crawler” gantry system which was first designed and developed by Spencer Group in 2007 which has propelled the company to be a world leader in high-level bridge works. Spencer Group has then gone on to use the system to enable vital dehumidification work to prevent corrosion of cables on the Severn, Forth Road and Humber suspension bridges, as well as the Alvsborg Bridge in Sweden and the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark – the world’s largest retro-fit cable dehumidification project.
The business has designed and built several landmark structures across the UK and achieved several ‘firsts’ in the industry. Key dates throughout Spencer Group's history include:
1989 - Established Spencer Group.
1989 - Company starts out undertaking marine piling and specialist civil works.
1998 - Scottish Bridge of Invention at Irvine – the first retracting footbridge in the UK.
1999 - Won entry onto their first procurement framework with Network Rail as a design and delivery partner for the Station Delivery Partnership. The company also established its relationship with Stagecoach as preferred contractor following completion of its fifth bus depot.
2001 - Fraserburgh Ship Lift – the first commercial ship lift in the UK
2006 - Increased development of its in-house multi-disciplinary capabilities, exemplified by the award of a series of contracts to design and deliver signalling control centres for Network Rail. A project was awarded to Spencer Group to refurbish and remodel Paragon Station in Hull.
2007 - Spencer Group developed a unique process to enable work at high level to “de-humidify” cables on suspension bridges and applied this first on the Forth Road Bridge in Scotland. In 2010 similar work was carried out to protect cables on the Humber Bridge from corrosion.
2010 - Delivered first biomass handling projects including the UK’s first biomass import terminal for the Port of Tyne and Drax Power Ltd.
2011 - Acquired the former ADM Cocoa Mills site at Cleveland Street to develop Energy Works project.
2012 - Bought and moved into new headquarters at the One Humber Quays office overlooking the Humber on Hull Marina, and for the first time one of Yorkshire’s most prestigious office buildings was fully occupied.
2013 - First contract with Transport for London at New Cross Gate Depot.
2013 - World’s largest retro-fitted bridge dehumidification project began on Great Belt Bridge, Denmark.
2014 - Company hits £100m turnover for the first time.
2016 - Energy Works construction starts, first facility of its kind in the UK.
2017 & beyond - The company is ideally situated to continue its progression in its core markets with a strong pipeline of work identified.
Spencer Group is very passionate about people and has a deep commitment to developing young talent. The company has invested heavily in apprentices in the last three years taking on 24 local young people in IT, Construction, Business Administration, Design and Resources, of these 15 have permanent roles within the business and the rest are progressing well.
The company is also a principle sponsor of the Ron Dearing University Technical College (UTC) in Hull, which aims to enable local young people to thrive in the digital economy and provide employers with the advanced technical skills they require. Spencer Group is making major, practical commitments to the UTC, including significant input into curriculum development; providing one-to-one mentors; setting business projects for students; providing high-quality work placements; and guaranteeing job interviews at the end of their course.
In 2013 the company became the first engineering business in the UK, and the first private sector business in East Yorkshire, to become an accredited Living Wage employer. An active advocate of ethical pay, conducting a series of interviews with local, regional and national media to promote the Living Wage campaign. Other initiatives include supporting the Armed Forces Corporate Covenant as an armed forces-friendly organisation. The commitments of the covenant include actively seeking to support the employment of ex-servicemen and women and their spouses or partners.
Spencer Group's awards over the years have included being named Humber Renewables Large Business of the Year in the Humber Renewables Awards; winner of the Transport Supplier of the Year at the National Transport Awards; winner of the Best Large Project on Britain’s railways in the Network Rail Partnership Awards for work on a major rail improvement scheme in Ipswich; winner of the Collaborative Working Award (with Medway Council, Atkins and Balfour Beatty) in the Network Rail Partnership Awards for East Kent re-signalling project; winner of the Rail Infrastructure / Possessions Team of the Year in the Rail Staff Awards for the Gravesend Station re-modelling project; and winner of the Best Large Project of the Year in the Railway Industry Innovation Awards for the Gravesend scheme.
Charlie Spencer himself has been honoured. He was awarded an OBE for services to business and the economy in 2015 and presented with the Lifetime Contribution Award at the 2016 Hull Daily Mail Business Award for his contribution to the business community in his home city.
Charlie said:
The success of Spencer Group is testament to the great people employed by the business and I am very proud of all our employees and their achievements over the last 28 years.
Our values have been with the company since 1989 and continue to guide Spencer Group’s ambitious plans for further growth and the company’s quest to be recognised as a flagship for the very best of British engineering.