WSP has announced its acquisition of Hulley & Kirkwood, a Glasgow-based building services consultancy, a deal that matters to building and architecture professionals because it consolidates specialist mechanical, electrical and public health engineering capability, particularly in healthcare and defence, inside one of the UK's largest multidisciplinary consultancies.

Hulley & Kirkwood is an independent building services consultancy founded in 1953, employing approximately 122 people across seven UK offices, with a particularly strong presence in Scotland and expertise spanning healthcare, defence, commercial, education and government sectors.

WSP is a global professional services firm providing engineering, environmental and advisory services, with a UK and Ireland business led by president and managing director Paul Reilly.

Paul Reilly said the acquisition strengthens WSP's building services expertise, while Andy Temple, WSP's UK and Ireland executive managing director for Property and Buildings, said the deal enhances its ability to deliver integrated solutions for clients across healthcare, education, commercial and government sectors.

The structural driver is WSP's continued bolt-on acquisition strategy for specialist building services capability, coming just a week after the Canadian group abandoned its much larger takeover bid for engineering rival Arcadis, redirecting deal capacity toward smaller, sector-specific targets instead.

For the sector, the timing matters because Hulley & Kirkwood's particular strength in healthcare and defence MEP engineering slots directly into WSP's stated priority sectors, giving the enlarged group deeper technical bench strength on two of the UK's most specification-heavy building types rather than general commercial capacity.

Folding a 73-year-old, 122-person independent consultancy into a global group with more than 12,000 UK and Ireland staff extends a consolidation pattern already visible across MEP and building services engineering, where independent firms increasingly join larger multidisciplinary platforms rather than remain standalone.

The broader implication for the sector is that specialist regional building services consultancies with strong sector credentials, rather than broad generalist practices, remain the preferred acquisition targets for global engineering groups building out healthcare, defence and education capability across the UK.

Source: RailBusinessDaily / Building / Consultancy.uk / The Scotsman