“It’s great to be part of a growing business where everyone can make their mark.”
In today’s team spotlight we’re talking to SHEQ/Project Director Daniel Bailey about winning accreditations, building apps and wearing a whole lot of hats…
Hi Daniel, what do you do at Trust?
I joined in May 2025 as an ICP (independent connection provider) manager, helping Trust build a multi-utility department to fit alongside our civils work. Liam, our MD, brought me in to support his vision for the business, winning new accreditations in electricity, gas and water.
Because I’ve been working on those accreditations over the last 12 months, I’ve also built an extensive health and safety background – so much so that in October Liam asked me to take on the role of Safety Director, looking after health, safety, environment and quality (SHEQ).
He gave me the green light to overhaul our complete internal management system and go for a lot of ISO accreditations, so we can partner with new clients, and raise standards across Trust. I’ve also been working on automating a lot of our regular paperwork, documents and form filling to standardise and speed up the way we do things.
We’re also using a new mobile app – a field management tool – that makes health and safety policies and procedures for all of our projects accessible to the whole team. It’s live and we’ve got 50 people using it daily so far. We’ll be getting more on board as we roll it out further. It’s about making us a much more modern construction business, so it’s great to be taking the lead on that.
My role’s now evolved again to become Project Director, because in reality it’s not just about ICP or health and safety, it’s much broader – I’m managing project work from start to finish.
What did you do in your previous roles?
Although health and safety is a big part of my job, utilities are my bread and butter. They’re where I’ve spent most of my career – a lot of it doing hands-on work on site.
I started an apprenticeship with an electrical company when I was 16, and that kicked off my work in electricals and utilities. At 29, I was asked to step up and become a supervisor. I’d already trained some of my colleagues, so the company wanted me to take on more responsibility – and I was ready to do more.
Outside work, I’d taken courses in health and safety, and management, to prove I could do those as well. So it was time to move off the tools and take on more project management work. I did that for a few years, building my knowledge of health and safety, tech, operations and the accreditations you need to win new work.
Health and safety is such an important area, I wanted to explore it almost from an academic point of view, to get a really in-depth understanding of what different departments need. That took me into the last job I had before Trust, where I looked after health and safety full time for 18 months.
I learnt what I needed to from that role, but I’d always thought I’d go back into utilities, using that new safety experience at the same time. Liam wanted someone who could wear multiple hats, with experience in multiple areas, who could have a proper input into growing the business. That sounded like a great opportunity, so I jumped at it.
I’m also looking forward to helping train people through our Trust Talent academies. It’s important to see the potential in people and invest in them, because if people feel like they’re going somewhere, they’re achieving their goals, and their manager’s got their back, they work better. I’m quite pushy on that – when people work for me, if they need anything training-wise I’ll always try to spend that time developing them so they feel part of a growing business.
It’s easy to have people just clocking in and clocking out and almost just see them as numbers, but that’s when they get disinterested and leave. As a business we’ve got a great training model, so I’m always trying to look at people 12 months in advance of where they could be, because that’s how you grow a strong team.
“I’m also looking forward to helping train people through our Trust Talent academies.”
What does leadership mean in an industry like this?
These days there’s a lot of new technology, new requirements for training, new health and safety regulations and, of course, the red tape you always hear about in construction. I’m 38 and I was physically on the tools for over a decade, a lot of it without all of that extra stuff. I grew up without it, not just through my own experiences but watching my old man, who was a builder.
So I get it, I understand the changes and how people experience them. I try to incorporate new technology into today’s working world, helping people from different generations, or with different mindsets, work alongside that technology and those new training requirements.
People behave differently, and talk to each other differently, out on site compared to in the office, so for me it’s good to be comfortable in both of those worlds. It’s definitely a challenge, but it’s really interesting to take on.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Most days I come into the office and, again, wearing multiple hats plays a big part. I’m helping train someone up to be a supervisor, I’m running a health and safety briefing, I’m going through electrical accreditations, I’m building projects, I’m booking teams to sites. I mix it up a lot.
I help Liam tender for new jobs, and when we win them I go through the design process and get the right skilled people on board to go out and physically build the jobs. So I’m involved in every stage. But then I also tie that into health and safety. It keeps me on my toes.
What do you love about your job and working at Trust?
I love the way Liam’s building the business and the vision he’s got. When he took over, he kept everything as it was for about 12 months to give people consistency, and to really dig into how everything worked. Now he’s evolving it, and I’m really enjoying being part of that.
I get a lot of freedom, but he’s there to support me. It’s very much a case of, it’s your department, I trust you to go and build it, let me know how you’re getting on. If there are any issues, we go through them together. Change doesn’t come overnight, but we’re making it happen and we’re bringing people along with us.
Of course, there’s always a bit of resistance. When you bring in new technology there are always a few people who say ‘it’ll never work’, especially when they’ve been here a long time. But now there are lads out on site using the app on their phones, clicking through forms that used to take much longer on paper. And people are coming up to me saying ‘this is alright actually, isn’t it?’.
Those small wins are really encouraging. It’s great to see us changing and growing. I love that we’re an evolving business. It’s not all completely set and structured, clocking in and clocking out – you’re definitely not just a number here.
What might people find surprising about your job?
About 90% of what I do is the technical and back office part of the job that has to happen before it even gets to site. I think a lot of people would be surprised how much goes into a job at that stage – getting approvals to connect a gas or water or electrical system, the sheer hazards that come with it, and the number of hoops you have to go through. What you see out on site is only a small portion of the work that goes into a project – a huge amount happens in the background.
What would you say to someone thinking of joining the Trust team?
It’s a place of growth. A place where you’re not micromanaged – you’re literally trusted to do your work. There’s also a sense of openness, so people can come forward and talk to management about their ideas, and explore ways of doing things differently. It’s great to be part of a growing business where everyone can make their mark. Nothing’s off the table.
Trust had the same business management system for years and essentially I said, let’s start from scratch and do this better. Liam had my back the whole way. He’s had complete trust in me, and as a result we’ve now got the best system the business has ever had. It’s about being given responsibility, and the autonomy to go out and make the business better.
What are your ambitions for the future of Trust?
I’d like us to grow our teams and bring in even more talent, whether that’s cable jointers, craftspeople, designers or health and safety people. I want us to raise the bar not just in how we do those things, but how we communicate them, improving awareness, running campaigns and having ambitious targets to work towards.
When you’re not at work, how do you like to spend your time?
I’ve got a busy household, with a six-year-old and a one-year-old, so my weekends are all about them. I try to have a day a week working from home so I can do the school run – I love taking my lad to school. He was born during the pandemic, so I was at home a lot when he was little and I want to keep that going. I like being there for the night feeds and the school runs – I don’t want to be the kind of dad who’s always stuck at work, so any time I get, I love spending it with them.
If you’ve been inspired by Daniel’s story. You can find out how you can join us here.
