Chris Bouch graduated in Civil Engineering at the University of Leeds in 1981. He has 22 years of experience of UK and overseas design and construction gained as a contractor, consultant and an asset manager. During that time he worked on the construction of steelwork for power stations, a cable-stayed bridge, a major highway viaduct in Egypt and some local hospitals in Nigeria. Design work included temporary works for a bridge construction, design of a replacement bridge deck, and design of railway infrastructure repairs. Additionally he acted as project manager for a number of multi-disciplinary railway projects, including a package of bridge deck replacements and a portfolio of station enhancements. In 1991 he became a Chartered Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers (resigned in 2021), and in 2003 he was awarded an M.Sc. in Rail Systems Engineering.
Since the end of 2003, Chris worked as a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, initially at the Centre for Railway Research and Education, where he studied a systems approach to the improvement of track capacity; track maintenance; railway innovation processes, and; modelling the resilience of the rail network in the face of climate change. From 2013 Chris has studied at the Centre for Resilience and Education, researching the application of systems engineering techniques and systems thinking to the development of future cities and the business models needed to support investment in their infrastructure. During that time he has had extensive experience in the use of CORE, a powerful systems modelling tool produced by Vitech Corporation in the USA.
In 2022 Chis retired from the University of Birmingham and now holds the post for Honorary Research Fellow.