LDC Top 50 2026
Mara Rastall
CEO
Enspec Power
When Mara Rastall joined electrical engineering firm Enspec Power in 2021, she was a complete industry outsider, “I knew nothing about electrical power systems and I was the only woman. But my husband Tim had spent his career there, so I wasn’t scared to ask the stupid questions.”
After Mara carried out a strategy review and launched their first campaign to grow their consultancy offering, the department grew by 400 per cent in six months. Since the couple’s management buyout in 2023, the Merseyside company has more than doubled headcount and increased revenue by 125 per cent. “We may be niche but we’re global experts in what we do,” she says.
We may be niche but we’re global experts in what we do.”
Q&A
What was the biggest lesson from buying the business?
Objectively, it was the craziest period of our lives. We were buying the business, I was pregnant, Tim was spending weeks at a time working on the Viking Wind Farm in the Shetland Islands, and we were completely gutting and extending our house. We realised we couldn’t keep spinning every plate ourselves, so we hired an executive assistant. She makes ambitious things feel manageable and has been an absolute game changer.
How are you tackling the engineering skills shortage?
The moment it really hit home was when I advertised for a power systems consultant. We had 400 applications. Out of those, only seven candidates had the right to work in the UK; it turned out that four had lied, and the remaining three had no relevant experience. We realised we needed both a short and long-term strategy: recruit globally where necessary, while investing in our own 18-month graduate programme to develop the next generation of engineers.
How do you make a technical business accessible?
At the recent All-Energy Exhibition & Conference in Glasgow, I thought it would be cool to display one of our panels but they’re 14-metre-square bespoke metal units worth around £250,000, so that wasn’t happening. Instead, we built our equipment in virtual reality. Using headsets, people could walk around it, explode the components and really understand what we do. Our industry is fundamentally invisible, so we’re always looking for creative ways to bring it to life.
