After 20 years of working in large consultancies, Phil Jones founded Phil Jones Associates in the UK in 2003 with a desire to simply get the job done.

Frustrated by the bureaucracy that is all too evident in some of the large practices, Phil offered his clients a ‘What You See Is What You Get’ approach to the provision of transport planning advice: expert advice provided by the actual expert, on time and to budget, with a commercial focus and proven results.

The transport planning business grew from strength to strength over the next 10 years, with the addition of four regional offices within the UK. The introduction of engineering and placemaking was the next logical step for PJA, allowing us for the first time to service our clients throughout the project lifecycle, from inception, through planning and onto delivery.  Andrew Catmur – a Board Director of PJA in Australia – was central to the bringing the engineering function to PJA.

Having successfully grown the business in the UK, our reputation for design quality began to extend beyond UK shores and we started to work on commissions overseas, including delivering training on cycle infrastructure design in Singapore, providing inputs to design guidance in Abu Dhabi and New Zealand, plus delivering a speaking tour on street design in Hong Kong and Australia.

Due to the high levels of interest from overseas in our unique balance of skills, the decision was taken in 2019 to establish a permanent presence in Australia.