Digital Rising Star of the Year shortlist 2026

This category recognises an individual who has been in the construction industry for five years or less and has used digitalisation, digital methodologies and/or technologies to achieve excellence in their work, and help advance digital transformation on a project or in an organisation.

Here are the five who made the shortlist.

Over the past three years, Patrick has been a key part in the way robotics, IoT and digital twinning are deployed in construction environments at AtkinsRéalis. As a technology solutions engineer, his vision was to create a unified, product-driven ecosystem. He introduced a stable, low-latency edge-to-cloud architecture that connects robots, sensors and digital twins. By integrating Azure IoT Hub, WebRTC and a standardised telemetry layer, Patrick enabled interoperability across heterogeneous devices, including Spot, Unitree and Kinova robotics.

He has advocated for information management best practice to unify data structures, schemas and metadata across robotics, mapping and cloud systems. Every technological decision was made with scalability, security and multi-client deployment in mind. His approach ensures digitalisation creates a reusable foundation for future innovation.

Patrick’s leadership style has helped in building a high-performing, agile delivery team. He introduced Scrum ceremonies, backlog discipline and clear sprint structures, fostering collaboration and predictability. He encouraged psychological safety so challenges could be openly talked about and learnt from, improved communication and trust, and enabled shared ownership of outcomes. He emphasised evidence-based decision-making, improved onboarding and clarity around responsibilities, and championed continuous learning.

Beyond technical delivery, he mentored team members on architecture, API design and agile practices, raising the technical maturity of the organisation.

Patrick’s work has advanced digital transformation in construction by proving that robotics, IoT and digital twins can operate as one cohesive ecosystem. His technical vision and leadership have created lasting benefits for projects, teams and the wider organisation.

Since joining Stantec’s Digital Services team in October 2023 as a graduate GIS analyst, Mia has become a driving force in digital innovation across the UK water sector. She set out to transform productivity by leveraging technology to streamline outdated data workflows and business processes. Late last year, she was promoted to assistant GIS consultant.

Her approach blends deep technical engagement with a sharp focus on user needs. She continually steps outside of the digital comfort zone to fully integrate herself in the engineering and programme management disciplines.

A stand-out example is Mia’s leadership in digital technology and information management best practice on a major water utility’s AMP8 procurement initiative. Recognising challenges posed by inconsistent data collection, she championed the standardised digital data capture processes through design and construction project lifecycles. She pioneered the strategic foresight required for automation, and anticipated broader information management requirements, ensuring solutions were tailored to stakeholders.

Her template is being rolled out across AMP8 projects, enabling the client and partners to streamline data handling and facilitate more efficient capital delivery. She created the client’s first timeline visualisation of asset demand, bridging solution data capture with project schedule forecasts in an interactive dashboard. This received praise from the client’s senior leadership, having enabled early security of several key asset types for multiple schemes in their multi-billion-pound AMP8 storm overflow programme.

Between Ofwat’s draft and final determination of a major client’s Price Review 24 business plan, Mia played a crucial role in recommending sites to target in the multi-million-pound AMP8 storm overflow reduction programme. Working to tight regulatory deadlines alongside a small senior technical team, she developed FME-based analysis scripting to interrogate measured and modelled asset performance against cost curves, generating evidence-based recommendations for best-value overflow spill reduction.

Her outputs directly supported the client in building a robust response to Ofwat, consequently forming the basis of their investment decisions, delivering asset and environmental improvements at 250-plus sites by AMP9.

Mia observed the challenges in Stantec process engineers’ reliance on an eight-hour manual wastewater flow analysis task. She built and deployed a digital tool that transformed the challenge into a five-minute solution, simultaneously reducing error and driving consistency in outcomes.

Mia champions a positive and inclusive culture in the company, managing the office’s social committee, and mentors new graduates and Pune colleagues in digital services, and has also represented Stantec at multiple STEM events.

Nathan Reid’s background is in computer engineering and civil engineering, giving him a unique perspective on how to make digital construction a reality. In 2019, he wrote a paper on the future challenges of engineering, highlighting the need for digital frameworks and training. Nathan works on inspiring the next generation, especially primary school children, about the future of construction.

In the past three years, Nathan has achieved chartered status with the Chartered Institute of Building and the Institution of Civil Engineers. He’s used these roles to promote cross-industry learning, connecting with game developers, AI specialists and engineers to bring fresh thinking into the built environment.

As events secretary for the ICE East Midlands Early Careers Network, Nathan launched the Leadership Labs series to equip early-career engineers with skills like resilient thinking and understanding community impact, and mentored two colleagues through to chartership. This year, Nathan was selected for the ICE President’s Future Leaders scheme.

At master developer Urban & Civic, Nathan is a project manager and leads the Innovation and Technology Board. He has introduced AI into daily workflows, including a health and safety chatbot and optical character recognition invoice tools. On site, he’s deployed drone-based surveys and robotic earthworks machinery to improve accuracy and efficiency. He’s also acted as a responsible client, championing environmental and social accountability, and working with the supply chain to solve systemic issues. All of this while delivering one of the region’s largest infrastructure projects – the Middlebeck urban extension and Southern relief road linking the A1 to the A46.

Recently, Nathan launched Morero, a map-first, client-first platform for project planning and CDM compliance. In partnership with Morta, he has introduced AI-driven PCI generation and delay analysis to improve foresight and realism. He is currently developing a patent to reduce power use, cut storage demand, and improve sustainability in engineering systems.

Emine Rachel Taylor-Unlu is assistant information manager at Balfour Beatty Vinci (BBV) and has successfully led the planning and execution of a critical Business Collaborator server migration for HS2 Area North – a highly complex task involving the transfer of 10 million uploads across nine delivery teams, impacting 300 organisations and 10,000 users. Her work has set new benchmarks for efficiency and digital excellence in one of the UK’s most complex infrastructure projects.

Meticulous coordination with stakeholders and experts ensured a seamless transition with minimal downtime. This led to considerable time savings, greater efficiency, better document management and improved collaboration across teams. It also safeguarded business continuity and strengthened trust in digital systems.

Identifying inefficiencies in spreadsheet workflows, Emine spearheaded the implementation of Endev-o, a web-based CDE for client deliverables. Over the course of 18 months, she led concept design and configuration, user acceptance testing and the communication and implementation strategy to 300-plus suppliers and 620 mixed task teams, managing 200,000-plus deliverables.

The transformation eliminated manual processes, reduced errors, and improved transparency. This innovation saved multiple days per deliverable cycle, delivered cleaner data, and set new standards. Via agile working, the implementation timeline was shortened by six weeks.

Emine has been instrumental in delivering three consecutive years of successful upgrades to the Esri suite of products, including Esri Enterprise, Azure Postgres database, and FME. These upgrades supported 1,800 monthly enterprise users performing business-critical tasks such as utility spatial analysis and database management. By navigating these changes, Emine ensured minimal disruption to essential workflows, improved system performance and reliability, and increased stakeholder confidence in enterprise systems.

To support HS2 Area North handover, Emine also managed the redline process for 13 structures across a 25km stretch, overseeing production, quality assurance and delivery of thousands of redline drawings to the client. This work was crucial for compliance and readiness, directly contributing to the successful opening of major infrastructure assets and securing construction compliance certificates.

Beyond these technical achievements, Emine has also demonstrated a strong commitment to team and personal development and industry leadership. She has achieved BSI BIM Professional Certification and PMQ Project Management Qualification. She actively contributes to diversity and inclusion through participation in BBV’s EDI Champions programme, Women in BIM and nima.

In just under three years since joining Laing O’Rourke’s Digital Engineering department as a graduate, Olivia Zdzylowski has made an extraordinary impact. With a background in architectural engineering and a passion for both creative and STEM disciplines, Olivia found her calling in digital construction through early exposure to 3D modelling and CAD software. Her ability to harness these tools to identify, communicate and resolve design challenges quickly set her apart.

Within nine months of joining the contractor, she was already providing logistics and quality assurance on one of the company’s largest rail opportunities. Just three months later, she stepped into her first digital lead role, helping to resolve a deep excavation sequence on a constrained inner-city site adjacent to a listed building – an achievement that showcased her technical acumen and collaborative approach.

Most recently, Olivia played a pivotal role in Laing O’Rourke’s support of Rolls-Royce SMR, contributing to the UK’s first small modular reactor initiative. Despite being the only graduate on the team, her insights and digital capabilities were heavily relied upon to navigate complex engineering, construction and logistical challenges. Her contributions helped position the team as preferred bidders in this nationally significant energy project.

Beyond project delivery, Olivia is a passionate advocate for digital innovation and continuous learning. She recently completed a Data & Insights for Business Decisions qualification, enhancing her ability to extract meaningful insights from embedded model data. She excelled in the global Enginuity Challenge, where her team topped the leaderboard for eight out of 12 weeks.

Olivia enthusiastically supports onboarding of new graduates and apprentices, delivering software training and guidance. She’s also represented her employer at multiple school career fairs, inspiring young people, especially women, to consider careers in digital construction.

Olivia’s authenticity, curiosity and solution-driven mindset have earned her the respect of peers and senior leaders alike. She is a standout example of how emerging talent can accelerate digital transformation in the built environment.

Paul Drayton, head of digital (Europe) at Laing O’Rourke, said: “Laing O’Rourke’s digital strategy is to transform project delivery through digital solutions. To deliver such a transformative agenda requires a team of talented, curious and energetic superstars. Olivia typifies these qualities and does so in a personable and authentic manner.

“She is perceptive and hardworking, solution-driven in the way she approaches challenges and demonstrates qualities that belie her experience.”

The winner will be revealed at the gala dinner at the London Marriott Grosvenor Square on 18 March. You can join the shortlisted entrants by booking your seats at the awards.

The Digital Construction Awards are organised by Digital Construction Week, DC+, Construction Management and the Chartered Institute of Building. Bluebeam, nima and Sage are among the sponsors.

To find out more about the awards, head to digitalconstructionawards.co.uk.

To become an awards sponsor, email Karolina Orecchini.

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