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Watling Consulting

Unlocking portfolio value through strategy and transformation

Watling Consulting is a specialist division of Watling, offering trusted strategic advice and decision support to government, mission-led and corporate clients navigating complex property portfolio challenges. Our expert advisers bring clarity, confidence, and capability to real estate decisions, helping you unlock greater value through strategy, transformation, and delivery.

We combine Big 4 pedigree with a boutique ethos: focused, expert, and embedded. Whether driving estate transformation, streamlining portfolios, enabling net zero, or developing robust business cases, we support our clients every step of the way.

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Construction-Company
Global-Network
Public-Sector
Office-Environment
Law-Enforcement

Our methodology

A Structured Approach to Unlocking Property Value

At the heart of Watling Consulting is our structured methodology – Diagnose, Develop, Implement (DDI) – which ensures strategic rigour, co-created solutions, and practical delivery.
Watling’s structured consulting methodology helps organisations unlock the full potential of their property portfolios.

Diagnose

We begin by deeply understanding your context, challenges, and data. Through rigorous analysis, we surface both risks and opportunities that shape the case for change.

Develop

Together with stakeholders, we design and develop future-ready solutions. Our approach is strategic and co-creative, tailored to your business, ambition and delivery reality.

Implement

We provide hands-on support to bring strategies to life. From detailed plans to change and systems, we ensure impact is delivered, embedded and sustained.

Our approach brings clarity, confidence, and capability to property decision-making,
ensuring your real estate delivers greater value for your business, your people, and your communities.

Service Areas

We offer four integrated service areas to help clients manage and transform their property portfolios:

Portfolio & Location Strategy

  • Estate strategy
  • Location strategy
  • Net zero carbon
  • Workspace strategy
  • Portfolio optimisation
  • Post-merger integration

Efficiency & Effectiveness

  • Performance improvement
  • Cost reduction
  • Organisation design
  • Digital strategy and data systems
  • Diagnostics
  • Should cost modelling

Business Cases & Commercial Models

  • Business and financial cases
  • Feasibility studies
  • Delivery strategy
  • Alternative delivery vehicles
  • Contract reviews
  • Due diligence M&A

Transformation & Programme Delivery

  • Programme design and delivery
  • PMO & Project Management
  • Risk & viability checks
  • Business readiness

Our services - Unlocking portfolio value

Why Watling Consulting

Specialist & Focused: We focus solely on strategic real estate advisory; no distractions, no bolt-ons.

Experienced & Pragmatic: Our team blends strategy consultants, financial specialists,  sector advisers, and property experts with deep sector insight.

Data-led & Outcome-oriented: We are rigorous in our analysis but pragmatic in approach. Gaps in data don’t block progress; they sharpen our creativity.

Trusted & Embedded: We work shoulder-to-shoulder with our clients, unlocking decisions and building internal capability.  We treat strategy and business cases as the start of a change programme.

“Strategic property options are not standalone; they are the beginning of complex change. We bring insight and delivery focus to help leaders drive real transformation.”

Sectors We Serve

We work across the private and public sector supporting organisations with complex property challenges.  In government and the public sector we have deep experience and services tailored to:

  • Local authorities
  • Combined authorities & mayoral offices
  • Police, fire & rescue
  • Transport and infrastructure bodies
  • Justice and courts
  • Central government departments
  • Regional and devolved government
  • Higher education & life sciences
  • NHS and health organisations

Case Studies

Place Property Vehicle
Business Case - Civic Centre Redevelopment & Place Regeneration
Blue Light Estate Strategy
Global Agency - Organisation Redesign
Collaborative efficiency savings programme
Strategic Property Review – construction company
Student Accommodation Strategy – UK university

Our Team

Watling’s team includes a blend of in-house and long-standing consulting professionals who work closely under a unified methodology and leadership. Our team members combine deep expertise in property, transformation, finance, and delivery, aligned through shared tools, values, and strategic direction.

Guy Brett

Director and Head
of Watling Consulting
Guy has over 30 years’ experience advising corporate, public and mission-led organisations on strategic real estate, estates transformation, and business case development. He specialises in unlocking value and performance through practical, insight-led change across property, procurement, and operating models. Guy leads Watling Consulting’s multi-disciplinary team.

Kate Mullins

Principal consultant –
Strategy and Regeneration
Kate is a real estate and project management professional with expertise in regeneration, portfolio strategy and location planning. She has worked across office, retail and industrial sectors for occupiers and investors, supporting strategic decision-making and implementation.

Dr Connel Bottom

Practice Specialist –
Property and FM
Connel is a strategic property and facilities management specialist with a background in Big 4 consulting and research. His expertise includes lifecycle modelling, benchmarking, and performance optimisation across complex estates and infrastructure portfolios.

Dr Chris Emin

Principal Consultant – Real Estate Strategy and Information Systems
Chris brings over 30 years’ experience working on real estate challenges including procurement, information systems, business modelling and portfolio strategy. He combines strategic insight with technical depth across asset-heavy environments.

Richard Grass

Principal Consultant –
Estate Transformation
Richard is a chartered surveyor and experienced interim manager. He leads estate and workplace programmes that deliver tangible financial and organisational value. His work spans corporate real estate, transformation programmes, and service performance improvement.

Agnes Jones

Graduate
Surveyor

Agnes brings project and analytical support to the team. She has a real estate degree and interests in consultation, financial modelling, ESG and client management.

Mike Lane

Practice Specialist –
Business Cases and Impact
25-years management consultancy experience for wide-ranging and high profile clients across the public, private and voluntary sectors. Specific expertise relating to evaluation and research, socio-economic impact assessment, Green Book business cases and appraisals, project/ programme management, strategy development, and programme design/implementation. PRINCE2 accredited.

John Tauware

Practice Specialist –
Financial Modelling

John is a senior qualified accountant with expertise in financial modelling and business case development. He supports real estate occupiers and developers with commercial analysis, option appraisal, and investment planning.

Get in Touch

Let’s talk about how we can help unlock value from your estate and support your strategic priorities.

© Watling Real Estate. All rights reserved.

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Place Property Vehicle

Client: Public sector consortium (County Council, Fire, Police, Health Board)
Challenge:
  • Fragmented governance and duplicated estate
  • No shared delivery model
What our team did
  • Developed the Estates Place Partnership
  • Co-designed operating model and business case
  • Created joint governance frameworks
Benefits:
  • Enabled integrated service delivery
  • Scalable vehicle for collaboration
  • Capital savings, efficiency, pooled resources

Business Case - Civic Centre Redevelopment & Place Regeneration

Client: London Borough Council with 20 ageing buildings
Challenge:
  • Underused, cellular offices
  • Political and union resistance to closures
  • Sites with high regeneration potential
What our team did:
  • Developed strategy and business case
  • Rationalised from 19 to 3 sites
  • Planned modern civic centre and service hubs
Benefits:
  • 30% floor reduction
  • £1bn+ regeneration value
  • Improved customer access and service hubs

Blue Light Estate Strategy

Client: Law Enforcement Agency (20,000+ staff)
Challenge:
  • Poor data quality
  • Unionised workforce
  • Internal complexity
What our team did:
  • Delivered an estates strategy
  • Created costed business case
  • Supported internal governance and capability
Benefits:
  • £500m OPEX savings, £200m CAPEX from assets
  • 30% estate reduction
  • Strong executive endorsement

Global Agency - Organisation Redesign

Challenge:
  • Operations in over 100 countries
  • Lack of structured governance and delayed decision-making
  • Teams were dispersed and siloed, with inconsistent processes and duplicated skillsets.
  • Declining stakeholder confidence and poor internal engagement
  • Fragmented delivery across a global network
What our team did: Our team undertook a comprehensive diagnostic across governance, people, and processes. Working with senior leaders, we:
  • Defined pain points and organisational barriers
  • Designed a Target Operating Model (TOM) to enable cross-border integration
  • Led the co-design of a change programme focused on performance, engagement, and delivery
Benefits Delivered:
  • A new global partnership and sourcing model with clearer roles and accountability
  • Creation of regional centres of excellence, improving coordination and capability
  • Substantial uplift in stakeholder feedback and employee engagement, reinforcing trust and confidence in the agency’s transformation

Collaborative efficiency savings programme - cross public agency

Designed and delivered a programme with 15 local public bodies in a geography  including the blue light services, health and councils to stimulate joint working initiatives and accelerate the release of savings from the estate. Designed a diagnostic approach that rapidly quantified the size of the opportunity and generated priority collaborative projects
Challenge:
  • 15+ organisations
  • Low hanging fruit picked and cost efficiency opportunities required
  • Lack of data
  • Cultural differences and varying degrees of buy-in across participants
What our team did:
  • Designed a diagnostic tool to standardise and accelerate data capture and analysis
  • Identified over 30 improvement and cost reduction opportunities
  • Quantified the size of the opportunity
  • Converted opportunities into prioritised bite sized projects
Benefits Delivered:
  • 100 local improvement opportunities identified
  • Programme for accelerated release of tens of million of pounds savings from 8 priority projects through joint working initiatives, including town centre redevelopment
  • Increased interaction between local partners

Strategic Property Review – Construction Company

Challenge:
  • Fast growing company with £1bn + turnover driven by M&A
  • Federated structure
  • No property strategy and limited controls
  • Requirement for capital investment
  • Led a strategic portfolio review to identify opportunities for generating value
What our team did:
  • Portfolio review
  • Estates function review
  • Identified and evaluated opportunities for releasing capital through through change of use, sale and leaseback, redevelopment & acquisition
  • Redesign of property services
Benefits Delivered:
  • Implementation of new target operating model leading to 10-15% revenue savings
  • Centralisation of property decision-making and services
  • Prioritised and costed programme to release capital

Student Accommodation Strategy – UK university

Challenge:
  • Non-delivery of new beds by PBSA provider
  • Scarce multi-tenanted housing stock
  • Ageing university stock of residences
  • Growth in enrolments required to compensate for declining real terms revenue
  • Reputation risks of inadequate provision and quality
What our team did:
  • Analysis of projected demand versus supply
  • Financial modelling of options
  • A commercial procurement strategy
Benefits Delivered:
  • Identified sites and delivery routes for circa 2500 new beds
  • Funding strategy for £200M
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