Our people

Colin Brown joined HS2 Ltd as Chief Technical Officer in October 2026.

Colin is an experienced leader in major and complex infrastructure programmes. He has worked in the railway industry for nearly 40 years and began his career in the signalling department of British Rail in 1987. Since then, he has held leadership roles in maintenance, functional leadership and major project delivery at Balfour Beatty, Atkins, Westinghouse and Thales.

Before joining HS2, Colin was Technical Director for Crossrail from 2018 to 2022. He led the technical integration and assurance of one of Europe’s largest and most complex infrastructure programmes. More recently, he has given strategic and technical advice to major infrastructure and government programmes. These include Cross River Rail in Brisbane, the Ontario Line in Toronto and the Ministry of Defence’s Submarine Delivery Agency.

Colin is a Chartered Electrical Engineer, a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has an engineering degree from University College London (UCL) and an MBA from Imperial College London.