Paul Morrell

Paul is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor by training. He joined Davis Langdon after graduating from the College of Estate Management, and worked on major construction projects in both the public and private sectors, specialising principally in the commercial and arts sectors. He became senior partner of Davis Langdon, before retiring in 2007.

He was a founder member of the British Council for Offices (President in 2004–2005), is a Fellow of the RICS and the ICE, and an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA, CABE the College of Estate Management. He also served as a Commissioner on the UK's Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (2000–2008; finishing as Deputy Chair).

He was awarded an OBE for services to architecture and the built environment in the 2009 New Year Honours list.

From 2009 to 2012, Paul was Chief Construction Adviser to the UK Government, with a brief to champion a more coordinated approach to affordable, sustainable construction. He is a strong advocate of digitalisation, having publicly announced in 2010 that BIM would be mandatory for all centrally-procured public sector construction projects from 2016.

He now practises as an independent consultant, principally concerned with governance and setting up major projects, and has led numerous initiatives to improve the efficiency, cost-effectiveness and sustainability of construction work. He was the author of Collaborating for Change, an April 2015 report published by the Edge Commission on the future of professionalism among the built environment institutions.

In 2021, he was appointed by the Secretary of State in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to chair an independent review of current systems for testing construction products. The review's final report was published in April 2023, describing historic failings in the system and proposing reform.