ICE Scotland has revealed the regional winners of this year’s STEM Ambassador of the Year and the Princess Royal Award for Emerging Engineers, ahead of the ICE Scotland Awards this November.
Angus MacGregor, business development manager at BAM UK & Ireland, has been named the 2026 STEM Ambassador of the Year. Over the last year, he has reached over 1,200 young people, prioritising remote areas of Scotland which historically have received low engagement from STEM outreach programmes.
He also developed a bespoke bridges workshop, in partnership with his employer BAM, giving school pupils the opportunity to construct a 12m -long cable stay bridge. This workshop is now delivered across the country.
ICE Scotland said judges were impressed by Angus’s holistic commitment to STEM outreach, continually finding ways to improve his engagement, while also encouraging and helping colleagues to get involved.
Angus said, “Maintaining outreach to schools, colleges and universities over a sustained period of 16 years has allowed me to see young people I have connected with, across different activities and age groups, grow and flourish. It is nourishing for me to receive feedback from young people and to be remembered when we return with the next activity, and now to receive this award, I’m delighted.”
John Casey, a senior engineer at Farrans Construction, will receive the Princess Royal Award for Emerging Engineers after impressing with his commitment to health and safety.
John’s paper, titled Temporary Works Governance in Multi-Contractor Renewable Energy Projects, outlined his own experience as the temporary works coordinator on two wind farm projects where governance issues arose between the principal contractor and wind turbine generator contractor.
On his first wind farm project, it was discovered that the turbines delivered were a newer model, unknown to the principal contractor, and unplanned equipment would be necessary to install them. The paper highlighted the methods John took to ensure adequate safety onsite when installing temporary works, including working with an inspector from the Health and Safety Executive to address the governance gap and organising regular meetings between the contractors.
Taking his key findings, he established a framework to improve the health and safety on his next project. This included holding planning meetings before works began and assessing and categorising the risks of each project element.
John emphasised that his prize was a result of the support from his mentors, adding, “I came into this industry at such a young age and the most valuable lessons that I have learned is those that come from challenges faced onsite, the problems you have to think your way through and the experience carried forward from one project to the next. That process of learning, growing and improving is what drives me.
“I hope this award encourages more site engineers, especially those early in their careers, to write about issues they tackle every day. The knowledge is out there on sites. It just needs to be shared.”
Both John and Angus will be formally recognised at this year’s ICE Glasgow and West of Scotland Branch Annual Dinner in November.
