Founder partner of multi-disciplinary construction company Focus Consultants, Kevin Osbon, has been honoured as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the  King’s 2026 New Year’s Honours List.

Kevin has been awarded the honour for services to the economy and regeneration in the East Midlands.

He plans to use the honour as a platform to raise the profile of the construction industry and to influence policy.

Now joint chairperson of Focus Consultants, Kevin, 61, said: “I am surprised, humbled and honoured to have received an MBE. The construction industry is massively under-represented in the honours system and I want to use this honour as a platform to help bring the sector to the forefront.

“Very often those who work in project management, quantity surveying, and general surveying don’t appear in the spotlight, but their roles are hugely important in developments and I see this honour as a recognition of that.

“Most importantly, I’m proud that the honour has been given for services to the economy and regeneration in the East Midlands, which is the area where Focus was founded, still has its headquarters, and has grown to become a significant consultancy in its field, working nationwide.

“I plan to use this honour as a platform to represent and raise the profile of the construction industry, to encourage the next generation of construction professionals, and to lobby and to help shape policy. I also plan to continue writing and public speaking, and to carry on with the charity fundraising that I am passionate about supporting.

“The construction industry has been good to me and I want to continue to give something back, working as an independent, cross-party expert based in the East Midlands.

“I have been both touched and amazed by the wide number of people who wrote letters in support of my nomination, and I thank them for their kind words and efforts.”

A passionate advocate of placemaking, with a strong commitment to social value, Kevin and Focus Consultants have been involved in many regeneration schemes in the East Midlands, including St George’s Cultural Quarter in Leicester, which delivered £100m of public investment and attracted £200m in private sector investment, and was followed by the development of further Cultural Quarters using his best-practice methodologies all over the UK from Nottingham to Southampton, Eastbourne to Lincoln.

Kevin’s first large project management commission in 1994 was the regeneration of the Galleries of Justice National Museum of Law in Nottingham, and has since been followed by work to help secure significant funding for the National Ice Centre and Motorpoint Arena, Nottingham Castle and other key areas and projects in the city and county.

His influence has shaped an enormous number of regeneration schemes around the country too, including the £20m Bristol Aerospace Centre – which created a home for Concorde 216 and the Bristol Aerospace Collection, preserved a key Listed part of Filton Airfield, and opened an Aerospace Engineering Centre of Excellence.

Kevin, who is an Alumni and Industry Fellow of Nottingham Trent University, having worked for many years as a part-time lecturer and provided a significant amount of pro-bono support to the School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment (ADBE), is also a committed supporter of charity.

He has helped to raise more than £1m in charitable contributions – more than £550,000 in donations and around £700,000 in kind. In 2025, he walked over 900 km (565 miles) of the Camino Way Frances in 35 days of trekking to raise more than £6,000 for Alzheimer’s Society – and that’s despite having had six knee operations. He and his wife Vicky are currently training for the Nottinghamshire-based Annual Strictly Ballroom and Latin Dance competition raising money for children’s charity Neuroblastoma UK supporting children with cancer.

Kevin was named in the Top 100 Influential People 2025 Awards as truly influential in the environmental sustainability sphere of the construction sector, particularly for his work in championing social value, sustainability and community placemaking.

He founded Focus Consultants from the dining room of his then home in  Beeston, Nottingham, in 1994 and has led the company to an annual fee turnover of around £8m.

Focus Consultants, which still has its headquarters in Nottingham and now also has offices in Leicester and London, specialises in providing project management, building surveying and quantity surveying, advises on sustainability, carries out business planning and economic development research, and helps clients secure public sector grants for regeneration projects. Other companies in the group include MES Building Solutions, which has its head office in Newark and offices in London and Birmingham. The business employ a total of around 80 people and annually turns over around £300m worth of work.

Kevin added: “I’d like to pay tribute to our brilliant teams at Focus Consultants and MES Building Solutions, who share my values and ambitions when it comes to the built environment, placemaking, regeneration and sustainability.”