Callum McChesney Achieves CIAT Chartership

1. What initially sparked your interest in the built environment?

I have always wanted to influence my environment and contribute to society. I’ve found my way to do this by producing high-quality detailed designs and giving advice on built environment elements/buildings.

2. What has been your professional journey so far and what lesson have you learnt?

Since starting my career with Corstorphine & Wright back in 2021 I have had the privilege to work on many challenging and complex jobs. Most recently, I have worked on Stages 4 & 5 of the huge SeAH Wind Production Facility scheme, which is a monopile manufacturing facility in Redcar. The sheer scale of the project always amazes me when I see the progress being made, I especially like to see the details that I have helped implement into the project.

I have learnt to make sure you get as much on-site experience as possible – it is vital to understand the work you’re doing and to learn from how things work with site-affecting factors.

3. What advice do you have for those undertaking their CIAT professional qualification?

Use the resources available to you through your Practice. Corstorphine & Wright have the highest number of CIAT chartered professionals in a UK practice and I was able to draw upon all their experience throughout my process including setting up a “mock interview” which hugely helped identify areas of development when it came to my professional interview.

CIAT provides MCIAT application workshop webinars that were great for when I was writing my application and making sure it was concise and easy to navigate when referencing your portfolio.

4. What have been the most challenging/ most satisfying/ most enjoyable moments?

Being able to witness the construction development of Scotch Corner Designer Village in person has been the most enjoyable moment of my career so far. After putting so many hours of work into something, it is terrific to see it standing there, in front of you.

5. How do you like to spend time outside of work?

After work, I tend to wind down at the gym (also miss all the rush hour traffic!) and on weekends I can be found doing something in the realm of playing football, walking, watching films or in the kitchen trying to conquer my next chosen recipe!