I'm Jack

Diggers first

My grandad had a plant hire business until I was fifteen, so I was round machines from the beginning. I was driving a digger at nine, before I could properly reach the pedals. I used to dig sunken trampolines for my mates, which turned out to be great for putting football nets behind.

At fourteen I got labouring work in the school holidays, landscape gardening with Manor Gardens. I got quite the passion for the shovel and I wanted to be the best at it, so I got better every summer. The bloke who took me on still says that although I asked a million questions, he was always excited for the school holidays.

Then the degree

At eighteen I started a degree apprenticeship with WorkBox. Four days a week on site, one day at Sheffield Hallam. Five years of that and I came out with a first class BSc (Hons) in Construction Project Management and the CIOB Certificate of Excellence.

By the end I'd been there longer than any other project manager and the company had gone from £3.5m turnover to £12m. I got thrown in the deep end: building regs, the standards every trade works to, quality workmanship, inspections, health and safety, contract management. I had to know enough to instruct people twice or sometimes three times my age, and sinking has never been an option for me. I've run seven figure projects on everything from graded laboratories to government funded developments where everything has to be perfect.

What I couldn't get past is that a project manager always works for somebody else, and rarely gets to be on the tools. I'd rather mitre and resin fill tiles or fit a kitchen than sort through 150 flagged emails. So after five years I packed it in.

Australia

A year in Brisbane with Visage Building Group, three commercial jobs from £100k to £1.7m. The construction director there self delivered a lot of the work and drove his own digger. Some days the two of us were grafting our absolute arses off and loving it, and he said he wouldn't have it any other way. That's what did it for me. He proved you can run the business and still be the first one in the trench.

Greenside Projects

I started Greenside in 2025 with a simple idea. Turnkey projects in Doncaster. Groundworks, strip out, joinery, tiling, plastering, flooring, kitchens, bathrooms, decorating. Everything I learned from every trade I ever dealt with, condensed into a simple WhatsApp message. And it gets done. The only things I don't do myself are electrics and gas certifications, and for those I've got two lads I've worked with for years.

Every time a job passes from one trade to the next is where it goes wrong. The plasterer can't re-attend until next Wednesday, materials get ordered wrong and the extra tiles are three weeks out, and you end up refereeing it all with no experience and no bathroom, when you've got enough on your plate already.

Take me on and there's no handover, because it's all under me. I'll run it from the first conversation to the final sign off, with the approvals and the paperwork done properly: drawings, broken down quotations, Approved Documents, structural calculations, the surveys you need. It's a minefield if you don't know what you're doing. When a job wants more hands I bring in trusted, accredited people and manage them myself, because I hold SMSTS and First Aid and running sites is what I was trained to do. Either way it's my name on it.

I'm 26, I'm from Doncaster and I'm here for good. Fully insured. I turn up when I say I will. I took my own house in Scawsby back to brick doing every trade in it myself, so I know exactly what I'm asking you to trust me with.

My favourite parts of any job are still the first morning with the machine, and the last handshake with a happy customer. I like the big jobs but the small ones just as much. Give me a ring and tell me what you're after.