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RESPONSIBILITY

We've spent more than two decades going above and beyond for our clients, communities, and workforce. Now more than ever, it's crucial we extend this commitment to our planet.

As part of our annual tradition of giving back over the Christmas period, our 12 Days of HCE campaign is returning once again! We selected a number of charities/groups located around both our head office in Leeds, as well as the various sites we inhabit across the North of England, to support over the festive season…

Day 1: LS14 Trust

Kickstarting this year’s #12DaysofHCE campaign is the LS14 Trust, who we were thrilled to donate £250 to! Located a stone’s throw away from our head office in Seacroft, Leeds, we previously supported the charity back in 2022 for that year’s Christmas giving campaign. 

After being set up in 2009, the group embarked on a mission to impact their communities across Seacroft, Swarcliff and Whinmoor. The team describe this mission as “promoting the area as a vibrant and exciting place to live, work and bring up a family”, and are working towards their goal by developing activities and opportunities for residents to get involved with; from food and hospitality services, fun activities for young people and families, and promoting health and wellbeing, to their collaboration with Climate Action Seacroft to share skills and learn how to both protect and nurture the spaces around their communities. 

While many of the groups we support during this campaign are located close to our various projects around the country, the LS14 Trust is much closer to home, and we love being able to support the local area that surrounds us. A big thank you to the Trust for their incredible work, and we wish them all the best going forward – you can visit their website and learn more about them here: LS14 Trust Home

Day 2: The Old Fire Station

It is our great pleasure to once again be supporting the incredible Old Fire Station, located only a short distance away from our Leeds head office. This is our third year of supporting the community hub, and their continued hard in creating a joint social space for their local area is inspiring to say the least. 

Since opening in 2017, the Old Fire Station has aspired “to create a thriving, welcoming and self-sustaining community hub in East Leeds”. In addition to providing an active social hub for their surrounding area, the station offers access to support and opportunity to children, young people and adults. 


To reaffirm our support, we pledged £350 to the Old Fire Station to help them continue their crucial work. If you’re interested in supporting them and want to learn more about what they do, consider visiting their website here: The Old Fire Station | Opening Doors In East Leeds.

Day 3: Support Dogs

Support Dogs are another new addition to our 12 Days of HCE campaign. Based in Sheffield, the group are responsible for training dogs to assist with autism, epilepsy, as well those suffering from a variety of disabilities. In the last 12 months alone, Support Dogs has provided over 600,000 hours of life-saving support, and spent over 300,000 hours volunteering – as a result of this, we felt their work was a great cause worth supporting as part of our Christmas giving initiative.

Also located in Sheffield is our ongoing Waverly scheme, which we began work on in 2024 for our client Harworth Estates. To support the local area, Project Manager Paul Fox personally suggested Support Dogs as a cause he felt was worthwhile, which is why we are happy to be donating £300 to them.


Jack, the furry friend you can see in the photo, will soon be going to a young girl with autism. The incredible work that these animals are capable of is inspiring, and we’d like to wish Support Dogs the best of luck as they continue to provide such a life-changing service. To learn more about their work, take a look at their website available here: Support Dogs

Day 4: Mission Christmas – Cash for Kids

Cash For Kids are once again embarking on their Mission Christmas campaign: a huge operation aimed at ensuring as many children as possible receive a gift this Christmas. Last year, Marketing & Social Media Executive at HCE Jack Cameron-Dolan, and Junior Estimator Dan Heffernan, joined the Leeds team to hand over a donation, in addition to lending a hand in the sorting and packing process that allows the team to manage so many presents.

This year, we were thrilled to once again provide a cash donation of £300 to the group to help the team in their admirable undertaking. In 2023, the team were able to provide over 16,000 gifts to disadvantaged children – an astounding amount of support – and so we hope through donations like ours that the team are able to raise that number even higher in 2024.


To learn more about the initiative, and donate if you are able to, please visit the team’s website here: Mission Christmas | Cash for Kids

Day 5: Guide Dogs

A new addition to our 12 Days of HCE campaign this year, the Guide Dogs Leeds Community Team are helping those with sight loss across West, South and North Yorkshire live their lives to the fullest! Their services extend to adults and children with visual impairments, and they provide guide dogs, buddy dogs, life skills, sighted guiding, information and advice – to put it bluntly, they do a whole lot of important work!

To aid the vital service the team provide, Howard Civil Engineering are donating £400 to Guide Dogs. The organisation has been in operation since 1931, and has since transformed more than 36,000 lives over their subsequent nine decades of work. It’s clear to us that their incredible work provides a life changing service to those it affects, and so we couldn’t be happier with our decision to support them.

This week, our Marketing & Social Media Executive Jack popped over to Guide Dogs’ Leeds office to meet the team and their furry companions. Only four weeks into their training, the skills the dogs were capable of was already impressive, and over the course of their roughly 30-week journey they will develop into life-changing support animals that will undoubtedly make a huge difference to someones quality-of-life.

If you are interested in learning more about their work, or would like to sponsor a puppy for yourself (something we’d highly recommend), you can visit their website here: Guide Dogs | The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association

Day 6: Wakefield Hospice

Wakefield Hospice provides an essential service to its local area, in the form of symptom management and care for those with advanced active, progress and life threatening illnesses. Since accepting it’s first patients in 1990, the annual costs of running the hospice are now between £3.9 million and £4.2 million – that’s £11,500 per day! This means it relies heavily on the good will of its community to ensure it’s crucial operation can continue.

Wakefield is also home to our Langthwaite scheme, which we began in 2024. The scheme is currently in phase one, as we prepare the site to open for future commercial developments. With this new work comes a desire for us to support the surrounding area, and Wakefield Hospice truly stands out to us as a pillar of their local community.


To show our support of their life-changing work over the Christmas period, we’re donating £450 to help with the hospices’ costs. We absolutely encourage others to do the same if you are able, and you can do this, as well as learn more about the charity, via their website here: Hospice, Charity, Fundraising, Palliative Care – Wakefield Hospice

Day 7: The Howarth Foundation

The Howarth Foundation are a long-standing partner of Howard Civil Engineering; for several years now, we have worked together to raise funds, and provide new infrastructure for the group’s endevours. The team there work incredibly hard to ensure those experiencing homelessness can get themselves back into the work place, and get their lives back on track. By identifying clients ready for work, finding them a suitable role in a place of employment, and providing ongoing mentorship and support, they are able to provide homeless people a foundation to build back their lives.


With a donation of £1,000, we hope to show our continued belief in the Howarth Foundation’s hard work, as well as our gratitude for the continued partnership we have shared over the years. We are certain that they will continue to do immense good, and look forward to seeing the impact they make in the years to come. If you’d like to learn more about their work, and support them if you can, visit their website here: Home – The Howarth Foundation

Day 8: Fortus Foundation

The Fortus Foundation are on a mission to help businesses improve their corporate social responsibility efforts, and support the various schools, community groups and small charities across the York region. They do this by simplifying the process for businesses; allowing them to choose the charity they want to support, fund said charities through their foundation, and ensure that money goes as far as possible.

Also in York is our Woldgate School & Sixth Form College redevelopment scheme, which we began earlier this year. As the Fortus Foundation targets schools like Woldgate, we felt supporting the foundation in its efforts to improve their surrounding community was the best way to show our commitment to the area.

We are pledging £400 to the Fortus Foundation to assist them with continuing their mission over the festive season, and we look forward to seeing the good that their work is able to do over the coming years in York. If you’re interested in learning more about their operation, visit their website here: Fortus Foundation

Day 9: Happy Days UK

Our sister company, Erris Homes, previously supported a Halifax-based group called Calderdale Smart Move; an organisation that support those going through tough times with food, shelter, and assistance moving towards independent living. Now, they’ve merged with Happy Days UK, and continue to benefit those who need them most. 

Happy Days UK provide a plethora of services to ensure people in their local area are not alone; running a community supermarket, helping to find accommodation, providing shelter over the winter period, organising social enterprises, hosting a community cafe, and more. It’s abundantly clear that their services have become a staple of the Halifax area, and it’s why we are dedicated a day of our Christmas campaign to them.


Howard Civil Engineering are pledging £400 to Happy Days UK to provide some support over the festive season. As colder months settle in and Christmas approaches, these times can be some of the hardest for many. We’d like to extend our gratitude for all the work Happy Days does for their community, and wish them the best of luck going forward. If you’d like to learn more about them, head over to their website here: Happy Days UK – Registered Homeless Charity in Halifax

Day 10: Homeless Street Angels

Multi award-winning charity Homeless Street Angels are providing outreach to those currently on the streets of Leeds. Every Thursday evening, the team ventures out into the city to distribute hot and cold food, clean clothes, toiletries and more. In addition to this, they assist with housing applications, hold fundraising events, help with furniture donations, as well as delivering food parcels. They believe in helping homeless individuals make a change, and enable them to do so in a supportive and non-judgemental environment.

We have a history of supporting homeless charities and organisations – like long-time partners of ours, the Howarth Foundation (you’ll find them in this campaign too) – which meant that the Homeless Street Angels team felt like a perfect fit for us to support. At a time like Christmas, while many get together with family and enjoy luxurys we commonly take for granted, it becomes especially important to recognise that many miss out on this. Taking this all into account, we’re making a donation of £500 to assist the charity with their hard work as they persevere throughout the season of giving.


If you’re interested in learning more about the team’s excellent work, please visit their website, and consider donating if you can: Homeless Street Angels | Award Winning Charity

Day 11: Candelighters

You may remember that, in 2023, we organised our big annual fundraising drive – taking on the arduous 15KM Tough Mudder – in aid of the Candlelighters charity: a group dedicated to defeating cancer, and improving the experience of young people suffering from it. Driven by a desire to make a difference, the group have worked tirelessly for nearly 50 years, and as a result we are more than happy to show our support as they continue their inspiring mission.

This is why Howard Civil Engineering are donating £400 to the Candelighters to assist them over the Christmas period. Having been named Children’s Charity of the Year in October at the Yorkshire Children of Courage Awards, the team also recently launched their Supportive Care Research Centre at the tail end of 2023. Since then, the centre has won four academic prizes, produced numerous academic papers, opened a project looking into how to manage febrile neutropenia – an increased risk of serious infections that cancer treatment can produce – and more. 


We sincerely hope that the money we and many others donate is able to continue this groundbreaking work. If you’d like to learn more about the charity, and donate yourself, you can visit their website here: Candlelighters – Fighting Children’s Cancer

Day 12: Mind in Bradford

For the fourth consecutive year, we are pleased to be supporting Mind in Bradford this festive season! Their incredible mental health advocacy has helped so many – from 2023-2024 alone they helped over 17,000 individuals with their mental health and well-being – and it’s because of this that we continue to aid them.

For many years, Bradford has been a key area of focus for us on a number of projects, most recently the Bradford TCF scheme. This year, we announced a key milestone for works, that being the bus route switch-over officially taking place. These works precede Bradford being named City of Culture in 2025, and we are thrilled to be helping the city prepare for this prestigious title.


To show our immense support of Mind in Bradford, we are pledging £500 (a Silver Sponsor) to the Mind in Bradford team, earning us a bauble on their Christmas Appeal website! The team are attempting to raise £15,000 before Christmas, so we urge people to head over to their website and help them achieve this target – you can donate via their website here: Winter Appeal 2025

Last year, we announced the introduction of Field View as part of our day-to-day operations; a software that removes the need for pen and paper when it comes to forms & permits, snagging issues, project delivery, and handover. Being available on computers and handheld devices such as tablets massively streamlines the aforementioned processes by being accessible from anywhere – a huge boost to our overall efficiency – in addition to being far more sustainable by minimising the need for paper use.

Over the last year, we have been thrilled at the positive impact Field View has had on our work. One area in particular the software has impacted massively is quality assurance – to learn more, we spoke to our QA Manager (and golfing extraordinaire) Ewan Bromley to see how Field View is benefitting his work…

How has Field View helped you improve the accuracy of quality checks on-site?

The software has helped by being able to specifically pinpoint tasks to certain areas, uploading site-specific drawings to drop a pin in the correct location where the task has been raised. When carrying out Quality Inspections it allows me to insert images of the specific type of work that I am looking at on-site and specifically score that section, which then, once all questions have been answered, will give me an overall score.

What are some of the biggest challenges the software helps you overcome in your role?

One of the biggest challenges that Field View helps me overcome is the tracking of QA, and the forms being raised for each specific piece of work, which then also links to the above when carrying out the Quality Inspections. It also helps to keep track of the tasks that have been raised; for example, in our audits, we have introduced in a 7-day deadline for tasks to be completed and signed off. Once the status of the task has been changed, I will be receive a notification.

In what ways has the Field View improved your team’s ability to comply with industry standards and regulations?

Field View has improved the team’s overall abilities, as there is more to go through on the forms, and we have slightly changed ITPs to contain certain elements if we have been caught out in the past. This then makes the site team adapt to changes in regulations, especially from Yorkshire Water over the recent years.

In your view, how does the software contribute to HCE’s long-term goals?

In my opinion, the software will help us contribute to our goal of zero defects. As mentioned above, we can easily change the forms that the teams use to carry out their own quality checks to ensure that everything has been captured, and then is also up to date with any regulation changes by the highways or Yorkshire Water.

In addition to the questions above, we asked Ewan if there were any recent examples of Field View having a direct impact on his work. In response to this, he shared some details of a Quality Inspection from one of our latest schemes, as well as a snagging list from another one of our projects. Both of these documents were able to be completed and signed off with ease and efficiency as a result of Field View’s streamlined accessibility.

A huge thank you to Ewan for taking some time to answer these questions. We hope this provides a more cohesive view of how this tool is allowing us to maximise our efficiency, in addition to increasing the sustainability of our day-to-day operations. It’s just one of a number of examples highlighting how we are levelling up our SHEQ processes to ensure the work we do is safer, more sustainable, and higher quality than ever.

Throughout September and October, our Senior Leadership Team gathered to strategise how we can more actively shape and influence cultural trends that promote a safe, supportive, and collaborative workplace for all our teams. To accomplish this, we have identified a number of key priorities designed to reinforce safety as a cornerstone of our business.

Our primary goal is to both reduce workplace accidents, in addition to fostering an environment that prioritises the well-being of each employee. Beyond technical skills, we are emphasising the importance of behavioural and interpersonal skills that make HCE a safer, more cohesive place to work. Traits like teamwork, trust, and clear communication are central to our approach – it’s crucial we recognise that positive relationships and attitudes drive overall company performance.

To make this vision a reality, we’re implementing several impactful initiatives aimed at building a culture of safety, respect, and continuous improvement. This includes…

We invited Project Managers from all of our various sites across the country, as well as Engineers, to discuss how we’re actively seeking their support in driving a cultural shift across our sites. As we continue to embed these initiatives across our schemes, we are excited to see the positive impact a strong, safety-focused culture can have on our company.

This month, we’ve spoken a lot about working with us, and the wide variety of benefits we provide. To round off Careers in Construction Month for 2024, we wanted to speak directly to some of our latest new starters taking up apprenticeships here at HCE. 

Hayley, a Pre-Construction Apprentice, and Fred, an Apprentice Quantity Surveyor, recently began their career journeys with us. Their time is spent at both our head office and their concurrent college courses, during which they gain a rich mixture of experience and understanding of their respective areas, as well as the industry as a whole.

To explore this further, and get some valuable insight for those thinking about working in this field (and with us), we asked Hayley and Fred a number of questions about their experience so far – take a look below:

How are you finding your work at HCE so far?

Hayley: I’m finding things are going good so far.

Fred: Work at HCE has been enjoyable to get into. I feel really engaged with the work I’m doing, and everyone is helpful.

What does your day-to-day in the office look like?

Hayley: I get on with the various tasks I have, chat with colleagues, have my lunch, keep going with my work, then go home.

Fred: I just crack straight on with the work I have, or get something to do from one of the Senior Quantity Surveyors.

What do you personally enjoy about working with us?

Hayley: I really enjoy the relaxed environment – also shoutout to the Friday company quizzes!

Fred: I enjoy that there are multiple ways of working out how to do a task, and that I can contact a number of people to help me if needed.

How does your time at college feed into the work you do at HCE?

Hayley: It helps by reinforcing why things need to be done, and the processes that happen before and after we secure work.

Fred: College helps me understand why we do the things we do by breaking down the processes involved in being a Quantity Surveyor.

What skills have you developed since starting with us?

Hayley: I feel I have gotten better at decision-making, as I need to be able to prioritise the tasks that require more attention at any given time.

Fred: I have developed my skills a lot on Microsoft Excel, as it is a key tool in my job. I am now able to complete tasks I would never have thought I could do.

Do you have any advice for those who may be considering taking the path you’re on?

Hayley: Go for it. Be confident and just try your best!

Fred: I would advise people not to be afraid to ask for help as you are there to learn, and you aren’t going to know everything straight away.

A huge thank you to Hayley and Fred for taking the time to answer these questions. It’s great to see how well the two have settled into their respective roles and departments, and we can’t wait to watch their progress over the coming months and years as they progress their careers. To anyone out there eyeing up a potential apprenticeship or career in the construction and civil engineering industry, we hope this blog has provided some insight into why it might be for you.

As always, keep an eye on our website’s careers page here for the latest opportunities we have on offer.

Last week, we kicked off our Careers in Construction Month campaign by answering a simple question: why us? We strongly recommend giving it a read for a breakdown of who we are, and why you should consider working for us – you can find the blog here.

This week, we want to explore this further; both for apprentices, and our other roles across the company. To do this, we spoke to our Recruitment Manager Ewan Mason – who works with all new starters that join HCE – and pitched him a single question: what are the benefits of a career at Howard Civil Engineering?

From an apprentice perspective, a career in construction is a popular path to take. The Careers & Enterprise Company highlighted that, in a 2024 survey of 100,000 young people, construction took a top five spot in terms of career choice. But what can you expect from an apprenticeship with us? Here’s what Ewan had to say…

These are just a few of the many excellent reasons an apprenticeship at HCE could take you further than you had thought was possible. In addition to all of this, you’ll receive other wider benefits such as service awards, exposure to a wide range of work (housing, commercial, infrastructure, etc), company vehicles, cross progression (meaning you’re never tied down to your current path, and can expand into other areas of this industry and our business should you so choose), as well as the opportunity to work alongside other likeminded individuals that truly understand your role.

As always, keep an eye on our website’s careers page here for the latest opportunities we have on offer.

We previously began our Careers in Construction Month campaign with two key questions: who are we, and why should you consider working with us? We highlighted our multi-disciplined skillset, the more than two decades of experience we have in the industry, as well as how our team members are constantly developing in their chosen career paths. Below, we’d like to expand on this a bit more – here are the three core reasons we believe we stand out from other employers…

We Are Committed To You And Your Progression

We are believers in maximising our team’s potential, and have countless success stories to back this up. We recently highlighted Steve Dakin, who, over the last decade and a half, has moved up from a site labourer to a Contracts Manager, and is now a key pillar of our companies management. Helping make success stories like this a reality are revolutionary tools like My Training Passport, which help us ensure you are always up-to-date on your career progression, and never left behind or in doubt.

We Blend Technical Expertise With A Proven Track Record

For over two decades we have worked diligently and efficiently to ensure every project we complete is done to the highest standard, and none of this would have been possible without our exceptional site teams. From huge, eight-figure-value projects like Arla Mega Dairy, to highly complex roadworks like the more recent Greengates Junction improvement scheme, we are immensely proud of our history, and firmly believe that the wide range of challenging work we undertake provides excellent opportunities for learning, growth, and developing your skillsets.

We Employ Innovative Solutions and Sustainable Practices

Working with us means you get to experience the latest and greatest that this industry has to offer. We consider ourselves at the forefront of construction technology, utilising state-of-the-art plant, putting sustainability first, and constantly innovating on our health and safety practices to ensure your wellbeing is always prioritised.

If all of this sounds good to you, keep an eye on our website’s careers page as we continue to update it with the latest opportunities we have available.

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