At just 30 years of age, Fulton Hogan Divisional Manager Josh Wilkinson has overseen more than $200 million worth of civil construction work and is now looking after a team of 120 people upgrading infrastructure at Auckland Airport.
The airport project carries significant responsibility, but it’s just the latest peak in a career that began 12 years ago with a labouring job during the holidays while he was studying civil engineering at Auckland University.
His rapid rise may not surprise those who know Josh well. On his desk is a telling photograph of Josh at just five, wearing a hard hat and playing with road cones.
He’s humble about his success, but admits the photo provides evidence of his early civil construction ambitions and love of getting his hands dirty.
“When I started with Fulton Hogan, I could see it was a company that valued people who had started on the ground, were humble and worked hard.”
Realising he needed to build up practical skills to be a good engineer, Josh worked in an asphalt and stabilising crew for Fulton Hogan in Waikato during his first summer break from university.
The hands-on experience allowed him to learn from more experienced colleagues, and he decided to apply for an internship with the company, which eventually granted him a scholarship. The scholarship paid for some of his university fees and he threw himself into his studies and university life – so much so that he went on to co-found the Engineering faculty’s student association while he was there.
During his final year as a student, at the age of 20, Josh was asked to lead a project to build an international-standard track for inline speed skating for Hamilton Roller Skating Club. His successful delivery of the project won him and his team an award for the best project in its category at the 2016 Civil Contractors New Zealand Waikato Branch Awards.
“I regularly drive past, and almost 10 years on, I remain proud of the contribution that the skate track is making for these communities.
“Civil construction is a very cool industry in the way that the stuff we build, generally speaking, will be there for a very long time.”
Moving on to the Auckland Airport project in 2019 brought new challenges. During the Covid lockdown in 2020, Josh’s team shrank to just 10 people, but as work resumed, he helped build the team up to 170 people at its peak. Based in Glendene in West Auckland, he now oversees major infrastructure projects at the airport.
Josh’s career trajectory has been remarkable: he is the only person in Fulton Hogan’s 91-year history to be appointed to a department manager position immediately after graduating from university. This is proof that people willing to put in the effort can start in entry-level roles and work their way up to senior positions.
People fresh from university who are ‘book smart’ should take the time to build practical skills and understand how civil infrastructure projects work on-site, he says. In the opposite way, people with less formal education can increase their academic knowledge by seeing, observing, asking questions (especially of experienced peers), and getting qualified on the job – allowing people from all backgrounds to succeed in the industry.
What drives Josh isn’t just building infrastructure – it’s also developing people.
“The main challenge as I’ve grown into my role has been learning how to adapt my leadership style to suit the different people in a large team.
“Some have been with me for five years now and seeing how their careers have progressed in that time and how they’ve developed, that’s given me a lot of joy.”
His leadership was recently recognised at the Z Energy People Awards in July, standing out amongst his peers to win the Z Emerging Leader Award. He was also a finalist in the Next Generation Leader category of Infrastructure NZ’s Building Nations awards in August.
Despite his achievements Josh’s ambition has not dimmed, with plans to become accredited as a Chartered Professional Engineer and eventually taking on further senior leadership roles to help guide the civil infrastructure sector’s future.
“The higher you go, logically the more opportunity you have to shape an industry.”
Josh says for people considering taking up the tools and carving out a career in civil construction there’s a “wealth of opportunity” to explore, as he has shown.
“If you love working in a team and achieving some pretty cool stuff together, then this is the place to be. People who are hardworking can go anywhere.”
