There are plenty of good consultants in the rail industry. There are also plenty of consultancies capable of selling you another person when you need something else.
We wanted to build something different.
At Enigma Seven, we’re bringing together commercial, finance, procurement, engineering, projects and legal expertise in one business. But the important bit isn’t the list of services. It’s what happens when you put those people together and make their expertise available to everyone delivering for your clients.
Because real problems rarely stay in their lane.
An engineering decision can quickly become a commercial one. A procurement strategy can create contractual risk. A financial assumption might make perfect sense in a spreadsheet but not survive contact with the operational railway.
So why would we expect one person to have all the answers?
The bit I think is genuinely different: One person on your project. An entire business behind them.
If someone is delivering an assignment for Enigma Seven — whether they are an employee or one of our associates — they have the wider business behind them.
If they need to sense-check something with Jo, our Procurement Services Director, they can. If they want another view from someone who has spent years in a ROSCO, TOC, procurement, engineering, finance or project environment, they can ask.
That support isn't another sale. It's part of the model.
Traditional consultancy can make this difficult. The client might need three hours of specialist input rather than another full-time consultant. But once that expertise needs another scope, another PO and another fee, there is a natural temptation to manage without it.
We think those are often exactly the moments when you should ask for help.
So we retain significant capability within Enigma Seven and make that expertise available around the people delivering our work.
Of course, we can't employ every specialist we might ever need.
And we don't want to.
Alongside our internal team, we're building a large network of associates who give us access to some exceptional capability across the industry. Our job is to know those people properly — not just their CV.
Our Associate Programme is therefore about two things: Ability and attitude.
What are you brilliant at? What have you actually done? How do you behave when things get difficult? What sort of client will get the best from you? What kind of people do you work well with?
That understanding allows us to move quickly when a client needs help while still being thoughtful about who we put forward.
Consultancy should just feel a bit more human and this is the bit I care about most.
Work should be enjoyable. You should like the people you work with. You should feel comfortable asking for help. You should be challenged by good people. You should be trusted to get on with your job. And you should finish an assignment feeling proud of what you've done.
That applies whether you're employed by Enigma Seven for ten years or working with us as an associate for ten weeks.
We want to look after the people who work with us because, ultimately, if we look after our people, they'll look after our clients.
Maybe that's not revolutionary.
But it feels surprisingly different.
We have big ambitions for Enigma Seven, and we want to grow significantly over the coming years. But I'm increasingly convinced that growth is the outcome, not the objective.
The objective is to surround ourselves with brilliant people, work with clients we like, tackle difficult problems and do work we're genuinely proud to put our name to.
If we can protect that as we grow, I think we'll build something pretty special.