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Ste Taylor

From Setbacks to Success: Ste Taylor’s Journey to Head of Design at Turley

Ste Taylor is a Director and Head of Placemaking at Turley, a design code specialist and expert witness who moved from architecture into urban design.

Portrait of Ste Taylor
Ste Taylor · Turley
Current role
Director
Practice
Turley
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom

Conversation

The thinking behind the work.

Episode 0230 · Architecture Social

From Setbacks to Success: Ste Taylor’s Journey to Head of Design at Turley

Ste Taylor’s career path is anything but traditional—starting in architecture, navigating difficult times and redundancies before ultimately rising to Head of Design at Turley. In this episode, we dive into his unexpected journey, from falling out of love with architecture to mastering design and planning on the client side. We’ll also get into the nitty-gritty of design codes, their role in shaping better housing, and why they’re more critical now than ever. With the UK at a crossroads in urban

Cover artwork for From Setbacks to Success: Ste Taylor’s Journey to Head of Design at Turley
Explore episode moments

Use the timestamps below to find each moment in the full episode.

  1. 01:28 · Meet Ste Taylor, Head of Design at Turley ↗
  2. 01:54 · Ste's journey into architecture ↗
  3. 02:49 · Overcoming imposter syndrome ↗
  4. 06:21 · Moving from architecture into urban design ↗
  5. 13:31 · Career challenges and redundancy ↗
  6. 19:15 · Joining Turley and career growth ↗

Selected work

Selected work.

About

The story so far.

The person behind the work.

Ste Taylor is a Director and Head of Placemaking at Turley, leading the consultancy's design team across the UK. He has more than 20 years' experience as a designer, spanning architecture practices, in house roles at major housebuilders and urban design consultancy.

Ste studied architecture at the University of Sheffield before working in practice in Liverpool and Manchester. He moved client side as a designer with Bovis Homes and later Countryside Properties, then returned to consultancy at EDAW (now AECOM) and DPP Shape, specialising in masterplanning and urban regeneration. He joined Turley in 2010 and became a Director in 2015.

A specialist in design coding, Ste completed a secondment with the Office for Place, where he helped appraise the first 25 government funded design codes in England alongside his colleague Neil Harvie. He has acted as an expert design witness on several residential projects, is a Recognised Practitioner in Urban Design with the Urban Design Group, and is a visiting tutor at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Watch or listen to the full conversation in the Architecture Social CPD: From Setbacks to Success: Ste Taylor's Inspiring Journey to Head of Design at Turley.

The practice

Turley

Turley is an independent advisory business for the built environment, with 15 offices across the UK and Ireland spanning planning, design and sustainability.

Architecture practice · Greater Manchester

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Expertise

What I bring.

Current role
Director
Practice
Turley
Location
Manchester, United Kingdom
On the podcast
1 episode · 2025

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