好色先生TV

Having made it to associate at Davis Langdon, Arthur Adair was well on his way. He'd carved out a niche for himself as an expert in the education sector and had a few high profile projects under his belt. It's a fair bet that if he kept his head down and carried on pulling off projects like Birmingham's 拢23m Matthew Boulton College scheme he'd have been joining the ranks of the partners at the giant firm. But he gave it all up earlier this year to join Concept, a Midlands outfit of about 20 staff.

Adair is one of a string of consultants who have left the security of large companies to pursue relatively precarious careers at much smaller firms. They say that the chance to innovate and get closer to clients outweighs having the advantage of a big name backing you up.

Adair joined Davis Langdon in Birmingham two and a half years ago after leaving medium-sized company Francis Graves. He says: "Davis Langdon is a huge and very powerful firm with blue-chip clients and high profile projects, but (working for them) leads inevitably into being channelled into a specialism. I wasn't used to this. I had always worked on a variety of projects, from conception to completion."

There are no entrepreneurs anymore in the industry

Joe Giordano, director, Devsol

It left him feeling frustrated. "I was not able to make as full a contribution to Davis Langdon as I wanted. I wasn't getting fulfilled and I couldn't see my way out of that in the medium term."

In Concept's eight-strong Birmingham office, Adair already feels he is involved in projects "more fully". "Today I'm meeting Simon Gardiner (Concept's director of business development) to discuss how we can harness our skills to win work. So I'm getting involved on the front end. I'll be going to see potential clients and explaining what we do."

I wasn鈥檛 getting fulfilled and I couldn鈥檛 see my way out in the medium term

Arthur Adair, senior PM, Concept

This contrasts strikingly with his experience at Davis Langdon, where "the work just gets passed down to you so you don't get the excitement of winning the job or the sense of ownership of the job".

Stan Inskip is associate and head of Liverpool for another smaller operation - CM Parker Browne. He joined over a year ago from contracting giant Kajima. "It was a culture shock. At Kajima there would be people who would do lots of different tasks for you. At CMPB suddenly I had to get all my tools out the box." This meant writing reports, attending meetings and even taking minutes, which he said would have been handled by a junior project manager at Kajima.

Yet he finds his new role more rewarding. "I don't miss anything from Kajima. Now I can get involved in a project again. You get more enjoyment from being closer to the work."