Appointment

Wates Construction appoints Roger Forsdyke UK Operations Director

By Staff Writer  |  18 August 2026

Wates Construction has appointed Roger Forsdyke as UK Operations Director. He joins from Willmott Dixon, where he was Chief Operating Officer of its interiors business, and takes up the position on 1 September 2026.

The appointment was announced by Wates on 17 August 2026. Forsdyke will lead Wates Construction's operational teams across all regions and carries responsibility for operational performance across the UK business. He will also take forward the next phase of the business optimisation programme.

Forsdyke brings more than 15 years of experience leading and shaping tier one construction companies operating across multiple regions. He joins from Willmott Dixon, where he served as Chief Operating Officer of its interiors business and was formerly Managing Director of its southern construction region.

Wates states that the appointment forms part of Wates Construction's strategy to accelerate sustainable growth across the public and private sectors and to strengthen its national operational leadership, as it continues to invest in the expertise and leadership needed for increasingly complex and high value projects.

Commenting on the move, Forsdyke said: "I'm delighted to be joining Wates Construction at such an exciting point in its journey. The business has built a reputation as a trusted partner, delivering high-quality projects that create lasting value for customers, communities and the people who use them."

He added that he looked forward to working with the wider team "to support the next phase of growth, strengthen operational excellence in everything we do, and continue delivering exceptional outcomes".

What the practitioner should take from this

A change of national operations director is reported as a personnel matter, but for anyone administering a live contract with the business it is an operational one. Operational leadership sits above the project team and below the board, and it is the level at which decisions on resourcing, programme recovery and commercial escalation are actually taken. Where a dispute has been running through an escalation ladder, the identity of the person at the top of that ladder matters, and the change of holder does not by itself reset any contractual timetable.

The practical point is one of authority. Most standard forms and most bespoke amendments name roles rather than individuals, so an appointment of this kind ordinarily changes nothing in the contract. The risk lies in the informal understandings that build up around a project: an agreed method of measurement never written down, a tolerated departure from a specification, an accepted pattern of late notices. Those understandings live with people, not with job titles, and they are the first casualty of a change at senior level.

The disciplined response is unglamorous. Where a position has been reached by conduct rather than by written agreement, record it now and put it to the other side for confirmation. Where an escalation clause names a post rather than a person, check that the post still exists in the new structure and that notices are being served on the right office. Where a settlement or standstill has been agreed in correspondence, confirm that it survives in the same terms.

Contractual notices deserve particular attention. Many contracts require service on a named individual or at a specified address, and a business reorganisation is a common reason for a valid notice to be served on somebody who has left. That is a defect capable of costing an entitlement, and it is avoided by a single letter rather than by an argument two years later.

None of this reflects on the business or on the appointment, which has been made from a position of stated growth. It is the ordinary housekeeping that any change in senior operational leadership should prompt on the other side of a contract, and it costs an afternoon.