A quieter week at the top table, but three moves worth a second look, and a common thread: firms hiring for where the work is going rather than where it has been.

Linesight promotes from within. John Butler becomes CEO on 1 January 2027, succeeding Paul Boylan, who stays on as group CEO of parent IPS (IPS, Linesight and Springtide). Butler joined Linesight as a graduate and currently runs APAC and the GCC; Scott Halyday takes that patch and joins the global exec. Linesight has grown from 700 people to more than 2,500 since 2021 on the back of data centres and life sciences, so this is a continuity call, not a change of direction. Expect the data centre push to keep pulling cost and PM talent away from the traditional QS houses. Water Magazine

Severfield brings in a design brain. Simon Nicholas joins as chief technical officer and exec committee member, reporting to Paul McNerney. He ran Robert Bird Group's UK and European business for eight years, then oversaw 650 staff at Surbana Jurong. The brief is to get Severfield in earlier through PCSAs. With underlying pre-tax profit down from £18.1m to £10.5m, read this as a margin play: shape the design, protect the price. Construction Enquirer, Construction Wave

Tilbury Douglas raids Vinci in the north. Dave Clarke, Vinci's construction director for Yorkshire and the North East (and before that Wates and Shepherd), now leads Tilbury Douglas's regional building business across the same patch. It follows June's reshuffle that made Martin Horne regional MD for the north. Framework-led education and health work is clearly where Tilbury Douglas sees its northern growth, and hiring a local operator with the relationships already in place is the quickest way to win it. Construction News

More moves

  • Suria Jones steps up to Europe Hub director for technical, safety and digital at Laing O'Rourke, after four years as structures technical director. Construction Wave
  • James Garnett leaves Morgan Sindall, where he was an operations director, for GMI Construction Group. Construction Enquirer