Craig Phillips
Craig was born in Liverpool in 1971, the younger of 2 children, his family moved to Shropshire in the late 1980’s. At 18, Craig secured a bricklaying apprenticeship whilst employed with Wrekin Council’s construction department (Wrekin Construction).
Determined to ensure he excelled in his chosen profession, he attended further night school classes in advanced brickwork and civil engineering. Having qualified with a City & Guilds, Craig went on to set up his own building company.
In 2000 Craig when shot to fame winning the first ’Big Brother’ and with it the hearts of a nation, many viewers already knew he was a self-made entrepreneur. He set up and ran his own highly successful building company for 10 years throughout the 1990’s and had started developing his own property portfolio; employing 30 tradesmen and operating a company with an annual turnover of over £1 million. He is now recognised as a successful property developer with numerous dwellings in his portfolio, all of which have been personally designed, restored and project managed by Craig and his team.
His public appeal shown in Big Brother along with his vast property experience, construction knowledge and down to earth manner were quickly spotted by television executives and he was drafted in as a resident expert on various TV programmes. Craig has now presented over 700 shows and appeared on shows for all the major broadcasters including BBC, ITV, C4, Five, UKTV Style and Discovery Realtime. His programmes have been seen not only in the UK but across the globe reaching millions of viewers on a daily basis throughout Europe and as far as Korea, New Zealand and the USA.
In 2003, Craig merged with a top BBC cameraman/director to form their own independent production company Avent Productions which has since gone on to produce projects for a range of broadcast and corporate clients. Craig has now executive produced and presented shows for Discovery worldwide and the British Forces Broadcasting Service reaching 17 countries within the United Nations worldwide.
In addition, Craig is often asked to make television guest appearances on entertainment and factual programmes and has appeared on numerous shows for broadcasters in the UK and Northern Ireland.
In 2005 Craig set up the largest independent construction training centre in the North-West. The 25,000 square feet facility was designed and built by Craig and his team to simulate a real construction site environment.
After 2 years of planning and development, Cherie Booth QC and a whole host of celebrities formally opened the doors to the first 152 students. Craig’s vision created a centre which simulates a real construction environment providing facilities for a range of building trades and this was recognised by the CITB who gave the centre full accreditation and the accolade of providing the best wet trades training facilities in the UK. Today the facility is now 100,000 square feet, delivering a variety of work based learning courses in numerous construction disciplines, with the capacity to train up to 500 students on site.
He is often asked to; attend as guest of honour at official openings of housing developments, present property awards events, deliver motivational and after dinner speeches, open home improvement and garden superstores, perform professional building demonstrations at home and trade shows, open housing and regeneration conferences, host on stage building challenges at construction trade shows, open construction trade counter branches and lend his support to regional and national regeneration initiatives.
The list of corporate and educational clients Craig has assisted to date is as diverse as it is impressive and includes; Construction Industry Training Board, Learning and Skills Council, Department for Education & Skills, Wickes, Everbuild, Floors 2 Go, P&O, Nestle, St Ivel, McInerney Homes, Bellway Homes, Business Link, Harrods, Trinity Mirror Group, BBC, Emap, Channel 4, Gala Bingo, British Gas, Abbey National, Homebase, various district council’s, county council’s, universities, and colleges across the UK.
2000 watched by over 10 million viewers, Craig received 3.7 million votes on the final night becoming C4’s first Big Brother winner, donating his entire £70,000 prize money to a Downs Syndrome friend Joanne Harris.
When Craig famously confronted ’Nasty’ Nick Bateman the UK TV industry came to a virtual standstill. The stand off was watched live on the internet by a record 10 million people. Intel quoted this was ’the most traffic ever seen live on one website’ landing Craig a television award and being voted one of the 50 best ever television moments in Broadcast magazine.
Craig supports numerous charities and is certainly a man of action in supporting them he has; abseiled one of London’s tallest buildings, abseiled the 335ft high St John’s Beacon tower above Liverpool City Centre, completed the London marathon, zip lined 600 feet across an open quarry, took part in a 12,000 ft skydive jumps, wing walked at 2000ft. Craig’s charity activities in 2007 included several bike rides, golf days and taking part in the 2008 PDSA Pet Pawtraits celebrity calendar. 2007 saw him round off his charity activities with his most challenging charity activity yet - diving with Europe’s largest collection of sharks and stingrays for the Anthony Nolan Trust.
Craig’s warm down to earth personality and vast knowledge in construction makes him a popular choice for a variety of corporate and educational clients for live appearances.
Please visit Craig's website at www.craigphillips.co.uk
