Experienced, experts in piling
equipment supply
The Management Team
Robin
CEO and Chairman
Established Watson & Hillhouse in 1972
Co-founder with Mr Hillhouse (a simple coin toss determined whose name went first!), Watson & Hillhouse has gone from strength to strength since that day 50+ years ago!
Robin now works part time supporting the managing director, and financial director, two or three days a week.
Phil
Managing Director
Phil joined Watson & Hillhouse straight from school and has worked his way up through the ranks from trainee hire manager in 1980 to managing director in 2004. He is in charge of the day to day running of the company and is also handles all new and used sales enquiries.
Peter
Finance & HR Director
For all things finance Peter is your man – ably assisted by Keren and Amy.
Peter, a Chartered Management Accountant, joined Watson & Hillhouse in October 2020. He has over twenty years experience in financial roles. His more recent post was with a local print company where he was financial director designate. At Watson & Hillhouse not only is Peter in charge of the finance department but he oversees all HR and IT operations too.
Scott
Hire Manager
Scott joined the head office hire department in 2001 having spent a year at Otley College studying engineering. He now deals with all conventional plant hire enquiries in the south, advising clients of equipment requirements, making relevant recommendations and advising of plant availability.
Chris
Northern Area Manager
If you’re in the north of the UK, Chris and the team at the Warrington depot can assist with all of your piling requirements.
Chris joined our Warrington team in 2011 after six years prior experience in the plant hire industry at Speedy Hire where he was a field sales executive. After six years overseeing the hire department he is now running operations at our Northern Depot.
Kieran
Assistant Hire Manager
Kieran joined us from Ardent Hire Solutions where he rose through the ranks from customer service advisor to escalations manager.
In his role at Watson & Hillhouse he is ably assisting Scott and Neil in the hire department. They are passing on all they know about piling to Kieran – which given their 63 combined years of service may take some time!
Joe
Operations Manager
Following completion of his four year apprenticeship training he went on to undertake a further two years specialist training in electrical and electronic engineering and was a highly valued member of the workshop. After taking a year out, to travel around New Zealand in 2014, he returned to join the workshop management team. In 2016, and following 15 months of intensive training, Joe took over the reins as operations manager.
Ricky
Customer Support & HSE Manager
If you’re in a fix Ricky will come to your rescue, be it spare parts or service.
Ricky started with the Company in 1999 as an apprentice service engineer and qualified as a full service engineer in 2004. Ricky has since been promoted to service manager to manage all site breakdowns and is your first port of call should you have a problem. He is also in charge of the parts department and is used to sending parts all over the world. Not content with those roles, and being multi-talented, he is also the company HSE manager and assists Peter with IT issues.
Tanya
Assistant Hire Controller
Having previously worked at Speedy Hire, Tanya joined the hire department in Ipswich as assistant hire controller in 2018.
She is helping the team with conventional piling hire enquiries and also books in all transport to and from site.