Clarity Before Scope
We remove ambiguity through early definition, clear specifications, and tested assumptions. The result is a plan that vendors, operators, and project teams can understand and execute.
About ICSS
Engineering certainty for industrial automation.
We are strategic thinkers, problem solvers, and trusted delivery partners. ICSS brings together practical engineering judgement, subject matter expertise, and delivery assurance to help clients protect critical systems, deliver complex projects, and optimise asset performance.
OUR VALUE
We make complex automation work in the real world.
Our work sits where safety, security, system performance, cost pressure, and live operations meet. We bring clarity early, own the engineering detail, and keep every recommendation tied to practical delivery.
More Than Compliance
We design safety, cyber, control, and automation solutions that are operable, maintainable, and proportionate. Necessary, never excessive, and never less than required.
Delivery Ownership
We bridge engineering, vendors, and operations so complex scopes keep moving. Our role is to bring structure, resolve issues, and maintain focus on the outcome.
The ICSS Difference
We are engineers who understand the consequences of unclear requirements, disconnected teams, and designs that only work on paper.
Our strength is combining subject matter depth with practical delivery leadership. We simplify, de-risk, and deliver across the full automation lifecycle.
CORE VALUES
The behaviours that shape the work.
Our values guide how we make decisions, how we work with clients, and how we hold the engineering line when pressure, schedule, and complexity converge.
Excellence
A right first-time culture built on disciplined engineering, technical assurance, and the intelligent application of expertise.
Efficiency
Continual elimination of low-value activity so effort stays focused on the decisions, deliverables, and controls that matter.
Teamwork
Integrated working practices that connect disciplines, vendors, operations, and project teams around shared outcomes.
Transparency
Open, honest communication that makes risks visible, responsibilities clear, and decisions easier to trust.
Innovation
A practical drive to ask whether the work can be done better through tools, automation, simulation, and smarter delivery methods.
LEADERSHIP
Led by specialists who understand delivery and operation.
Our leadership team brings experience across project execution, technical assurance, functional safety, cyber security, control systems, commissioning, and operations support.
Derek Thoms
BA (Hons) MSc CMgr FCMI
Chief Executive Officer
A highly experienced chartered manager who transitioned from an engineering background to project management roles, and subsequently transitioned into strategic roles to drive growth and innovation into delivery. This broad exposure across the industry gives Derek a key insight into which elements add true value.
Ian Didsbury
BSc (Hons) CEng MIET
Chief Technical Officer
A chartered engineer with 20 years experience in the oil and gas industry, specialising in functional safety, process control, and systems engineering. Working in various project engineering, commissioning, support, and operational roles has provided an accomplished individual with a thorough understanding of all aspects of the safety lifecycle.
Neil Middler
BEng (Hons) FSEng CEng MIET
Chief Operating Officer
A chartered engineer with 16 years experience in the oil and gas industry, specialising in functional safety, engineering strategy, and commissioning. Neil has extensive experience executing both major and minor projects in the EPC and operator environments.
Stephen McWhinnie
BSc (Hons) CFSE CEng FInstMC AFIChemE
Head of Functional Safety
Stephen is a chartered engineer and institute fellow with 34 years experience in the energy sector, majority of which has been spent in the oil and gas industry with experience in onshore, offshore, UK and overseas.
Terry Hodder
BSc (Hons) FSEng CEng FInstMC
Head of Technical Assurance
Terry is a chartered engineer and institute fellow with over 30 years experience working on major upstream and downstream oil and gas projects within Operators, EPC’s and Suppliers.
Timothy Canning
BSc (Open) GICSP CEH
Head of Cyber Security
A widely experienced Operations Technology (OT) Cyber-Security Engineer having upskilled from a Process Automation plus Controls and Instrumentation engineering background. Following a career of over 20 years in Process Automation and Controls, Timothy moved into the OT Security sector and has achieved GICSP and Certified Ethical Hacker certifications.
Start Here
Need a trusted automation engineering partner?
Tell us what you are trying to protect, deliver, or optimise across greenfield projects, brownfield upgrades, or late-life assets. We will help shape the scope, de-risk the decision, and define a practical route forward.