Marking Five Years of Excellence: An Inside Look at Morgan Rae
As Morgan Rae marks its five-year anniversary, our founder Priya Rawal sat down with visionary co-founders Luke Morgan and James Rae to reflect on their remarkable journey. From the moment their partnership began to the challenges they’ve faced and the landmark projects that have shaped their reputation, this exclusive interview offers a candid look into the story behind one of the most respected names in luxury property construction.
Luke, James its so great to have you here today. For those who don’t know Morgan Rae, tell us a bit about what you do and the types of projects you take on.
We are a high end residential main contractor specialising in works in Central London and the home counties.
What inspired you to launch Morgan Rae and what brought the two of you together as business partners?
A growing frustration of working for companies not doing things the correctly, we went to secondary school together and have been great friends since we were 11 years old.
Childhood friends to five incredible years in business. So what do you feel truly sets Morgan Rae apart in the luxury property space?
We always strive to do things and operate the ‘right way’, our relationships with our clients and supply chain is built on integrity, trust and respect. We have invested heavily in building a fantastic team of people including four in house design managers amongst a really ambitious and proactive group of people.
Describe a typical working day for each of you. How do you divide responsibilities across projects, people, and clients?
One of the unique selling points of Morgan Rae is director involvement with every single project from start to completion. Each director is allocated a project and a typical working day may include a project progress meeting with a client, visiting new sites to assess new tender opportunities, reviewing new tender submissions internally prior to submission and a spot checks on one of our various sites to ensure progress, site presentation and health and safety is up to standard. Although we will take our individual leads across these responsibilities, we ensure there is a constant overlap so we can stay informed as much as possible on the day to day progress.
Building businesses in any industry can be tricky but especially luxury property. What have been some of the greatest challenges you’ve faced in building Morgan Rae and how have they shaped the company you are today?
Most recently the tender process is becoming increasingly frustrating with clients quite often accepting the lowest bid rather than the right bid which proves to be a false economy in the long run as project final accounts quite often end up where they should have been to start with. The industry as a whole appears to be taking a short term approach to tendering and procurement, with the tendering periods under strenuous pressure and a rush to get to site with incomplete information. In the long run, this is a false economy for the client and the contractor. There does appear to be a slight increase in 2 stage tendering opportunities, and if managed correctly this can be the most efficient way to ensure the project is in the strongest position when it comes to commencement. More recently we have seen an increase of projects qualifying as High Risk Buildings that require gateway approvals through the Building Safety Regulator. As this is fairly new to the industry there will be a lot of growing pains as consultants and contractors navigate through the process, but having completed a gateway 2 submission earlier in the year, we believe there will be benefits realised during the on site construction period, as works cannot commence until gateway 2 approval which must have a fully coordinated design by default.
And on the flip side, what have been some of the standout highlights over the past five years? Any milestone projects or moments you’ll never forget?
Winning new work is always a joyous moment for the entire company, successfully completing a 21,000 sqft project on the Crown Estate (complete with a new 600m2 basement, bowling alley and swimming pool) with Lees Associates, Accouter and Appleyard and Trew was a momentous moment for us and a project we will be forever proud of. Our appointment on a £28mil residential project in Lancaster Gate in January 2024 was a proud moment for us and really enabled us to ‘step up’ our offering as a company and we are now finding ourselves pitching for bigger and more prestigious work. Moving into and refurbishing our own office in Grosvenor Gardens in April 2024 was an exciting moment and is testament to the growth of the team. Finally, the team of people we have assembled at Morgan Rae is our biggest achievement, every person who works for us is hard working and contributes to the success of the company in one way or another.
And apart from each other, who or what inspires you personally and professionally as you continue to grow Morgan Rae?
We all enjoy the satisfaction and detail of prime residential projects and seeing the end product is what motivates us the most. From a professional standpoint we would like to solidify our positioning as a ‘tier 1’ high end residential contractor in London and become recognised for delivering the highest quality product whilst conducting ourselves in a friendly and collaborative way……and for a fair price!
What advice would you give to the next generation looking to break into luxury construction?
Networking is key, make sure you get yourself out and about and build up a network of ‘friends’, The luxury construction industry is ‘small’ (but also big) and relationships are everything.
Well we love having you as members of The Luxury Property Forum. Looking ahead, what does the future hold for Morgan Rae?
We do not target turnover but we never want to go backwards, our aim is to keep the team of 30+ people we have assembled busy and continue to take pride in the work we deliver. We would like to expand our offerings outside of London and enjoy delivering projects in the Home Counties.
Finally, what does “luxury” mean to you?
Offering an exemplary service and product. The blood, sweat, and tears that go into a project from inception to completion can often be forgotten about once the completion photos are shared, but we believe the process and journey is equally important. This is a prerequisite to delivering a luxury product and only happens through collaboration with our client teams and supply chain partners.
About MORGAN RAE
High end main contractors delivering high quality craftsmanship, design and services across residential and commercial projects.