Small Consultancy, Big Advantages: Why Size Isn't Everything in Engineering

Muhammad Soomro MSc CEng MICE , Head of Civil, Bridge and Ground Engineering at InoRail, shares his insights on transitioning from major international consultancies to a more agile, medium-sized firm. Having worked on billion-pound projects like HS2 and Thames Tideway, Muhammad brings a unique perspective on what really matters in engineering consultancy.

What's it really like moving from a large international consultancy to a smaller firm like InoRail?

The difference is night and day, honestly. In large consultancies, you can become a small cog in a big machine - you do your bit to the best of your abilities and pass it on to the next team. But when you move to a smaller consultancy, you become the machine itself. Suddenly you're making more decisions, and more decisions with a greater impact, taking even greater ownership, and you've got visibility across the project, often the entire company and client base too. It's a steep learning curve, but the benefits are huge. You develop skills you never needed or had the opportunity to learn before, and your interpersonal abilities really improve because there's nowhere to hide - in the best possible way.

That sounds like quite a lot of pressure. How do you handle that increased responsibility?

I actually see it as overwhelmingly positive. The best part is the communication and interface with different disciplines. At InoRail, I've got the track team sitting right across from me, survey teams nearby, and we work closely with partners in structural design, geotech, electrical, signalling - the whole spectrum. You get to see the bigger picture rather than being laser-focused on just one aspect of the design. In large consultancies, you focus on your piece of work, complete it, and hand it off. Here, it's all about collaboration, and that's incredibly valuable, not only for me as an individual but for the wider team and our clients.

How has this collaborative approach changed your understanding of projects?

It's transformed how I plan and manage schemes. When you're interfacing directly with other disciplines, you start to understand their challenges and processes. For example, some civil engineers might not appreciate the complexities involved with signalling or relay designs. But when you're working closely with these teams, you gain a real insight into and understanding of their processes, what obstacles they’re likely to face, any potential clashes that may need to be identified and resolved. That sort of awareness and constant communication helps enormously with planning - keeping projects on track, on time, and on budget.

What have been the biggest plus points for you since joining InoRail?

Several things stand out for me. Firstly, I’ve felt a much stronger sense of ownership and accountability. When you're managing a team and you're the final step before designs go to the client for construction, you feel that responsibility deeply.

Secondly, I get regular direct access to senior management than I have in the past. I collaborate directly with our group directors, Nick Highton and Aaron Ratchford CEng MICE, ChPP MAPM , on every phase of our projects, and so do the rest of our team. That just doesn't happen in most larger consultancies. There are far more layers of management to navigate in the larger firms which can sometimes lead to all sorts of issues.

Perhaps the biggest positive is the speed of decision-making here. Smaller consultancies often work on reactive projects that demand rapid responses to emergencies. And that makes teams like mine well versed in making important decisions quickly. By removing bureaucracy and focusing on communication and collaboration, we’re able to providing the fast, efficient, and well thought out responses that keep projects moving. And that builds tremendous confidence with clients and has such a positive impact on project programmes.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: in smaller consultancies, you're not just doing a job - you're building something, developing people, and making decisions that directly impact the business and your clients. That's incredibly rewarding.

What advantages do clients get from working with InoRail?

Responsiveness and flexibility are the first things that come to mind. We can handle everything from a brief consultation - maybe a quick response to a defect on a station platform - right up to multi-million pound schemes. Large consultancies often won't touch smaller jobs because they can’t compete or simply can’t afford to take on a project of that value.

But perhaps the biggest advantage is that, unlike a lot of smaller consultancies who focus on a single specialism, we can act as lead designers, providing clients with a single point of contact for all designs. Just like in construction where you have a main contractor managing various subcontractors, we manage all the different design disciplines, have full oversight, and absorb the risks - financial, time, budget, quality - so the client has one contact managing the entire project. That’s a huge benefit to a client, a real weight off their minds.

What are you working on now at InoRail?

There’s a real variety of things, to be honest. One of the most interest projects I’m working on right now is a turnback facility just outside Manchester - it’s a multi-million pound project involving civils, geotech, survey, track, OLE, signalling, telecoms, and electrical power and InoRail is acting as lead designer. As design manager, I'm the interface between all these disciplines, using my skills in planning, collaboration, coordination, and leadership to manage the workflow.

I'm also overseeing smaller emergency works that require quick turnaround times. A client might call Thursday afternoon saying they need someone on site within hours, or perhaps that they've got a platform wall that's about to collapse.

That’s just the project side of things, though. I’m also involved in business development – bidding and tendering for new schemes, something I’m enjoying a lot more than I thought I would.

That said, the most enjoyable part - and definitely the most worthwhile - is spending time training and mentoring the team. The development opportunities are incredible. I've started lunch-and-learn sessions for the team and recently did an hour-and-a-half session on reinforcement scheduling to give our apprentice and graduate engineers new capabilities. Personally, I believe that it’s our duty as more experienced engineers to pass on the lessons we were taught and here I get to mentor and develop people in ways that just aren't possible in larger organisations.

Has the move lived up to your expectations?

It's largely exceeded them. actually. I expected the increased responsibility and ownership, and the chance to become more self-reliant. What I didn't expect was the extent of interface with various disciplines. I thought I'd be dealing with bridges, civil structures, and ground engineering, maybe some track and survey work. But the positive surprise has been working with electrical, signalling, and other specialisms in such detail. It's helped me gain new skills - both interpersonal and business-related.

I also didn’t expect to be working so closely with InoRail’s directors - that kind of collaboration has been a real eye opener for me, and a massive help when it comes to project delivery.

What are your main priorities now that you're at InoRail?

My top priority is delivering high-quality technical outputs consistently across every project while ensuring compliance with standards. I'm also focused on building long-term partnerships with existing clients and bringing in new business.

Looking ahead, I want to develop our in-house multidisciplinary team rather than sometimes relying on external partners. Don’t get me wrong, they’re some of the best consultancies I’ve worked with, but when you have specialists in-house, you get that real-time collaboration - you can just turn to someone and say "can you look at this?" instead of waiting for emails or dealing with external schedules. By growing the team and delivering all those specialisms in house we’ll be able to save our clients money and become even more efficient than we already are.

Want to learn more about InoRail and its services? Visit www.inorail.co.uk today.