Turning infrastructure into opportunities

Supporting major projects, government agencies and regional economic development organisations to achieve credible local content outcomes, build regional capability, unlock value and generate real economic and social benefits for communities.

Our Clients Include

12

Project Owners

20+

Tender Teams

8

Tier One Contractors

8

Economic Organisations

2

Community Ecosystems

What We Do

Hughes et al (HEA) partners with project owners and contractors, government agencies and regional stakeholders to plan, activate and support local and First Nations business participation, employment, and training and skills development.

Early engagement strengthens approvals confidence, reduces delivery risk and ensures projects deliver measurable local economic outcomes.

Why Local Content Matters

Major projects face increasing scrutiny to deliver genuine local jobs, procurement outcomes and community benefits - all while operating within fixed timelines, budgets and approvals pathways.

When local content is addressed late or treated as a compliance exercise, projects face material risks: approval delays, delivery disruption, reputational damage and loss of social licence.

How HEA Changes The Outcome

We help projects get local content right early. By working upstream of delivery, we design strategies that are realistic, defensible and deliverable at scale - reducing downstream risk and improving approvals confidence across complex project environments.

Our Approach

Strategy - Early planning aligned to project needs, regional capability and regulatory requirements.  

Intelligence - Market, workforce and supply chain insights that ensure commitments are credible and achievable.  

Activation - Practical implementation through systems, reporting, Jobs Hubs and ongoing assurance.

Articles

Our Services

Your Local Content Experts

HEA supports major infrastructure and resource projects across Australia to design and deliver local content strategies that create real impact and long‑term regional benefits.

We work across industry participation, workforce development and stakeholder engagement to ensure local communities share in the opportunities created by major investment.

Our dual experience - partnering with both owner’s teams and main works contractors - enables us to design collaborative, compliant and achievable local content models. We build frameworks that set clear expectations, guide delivery, and demonstrate measurable outcomes.

We are not just advisors - we are hands‑on practitioners. We’ve planned, tendered, calculated, evaluated, advised, implemented and delivered across some of Australia’s most significant regional projects.

Our mission is simple: to strengthen regional economies by creating local jobs, building capability and enabling sustainable community benefits.

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Meet the Team

  • Ben Hughes - Industry Participation Local Content Specialists

    Ben Hughes

    Managing Director and Principal

  • Jason Manttan

    Principal Consultant – Local Content, Social Outcomes & Regional Economic Development

  • Jacqueline Lawton

    Jacqueline Lawton

    Local Industry Participation Officer

  • Camila Hynes

    Fractional CMO I Marketing Lead

Case Studies

Logo of localbuy with the tagline "Pre-Qualified Supplier".
Cover page of a guide titled "Project Directors Local Content Guidance Note," featuring a light blue background with illustrations of a windmill, buildings, trees, a tractor, people, and various office and community scenes, along with a dark blue, orange, and green title banner.

Local Content Best Practice Guide

Download our Local Content Guidance Note, referenced in the Commonwealth Government Procurement report (2022) as an important resource in helping understand Local Content.

Written in 2020 during COVID, the guide was aimed principally at the Project Directors of main works contractors who were normally contracted to build a project……and suddenly expected to develop an economy. What started out as a lock down project to help a client ended up being a resource that we amended and published for free.

Much has moved on since 2020; however, a lot of the underlying principles still prevail, even if much of it is now accepted. Enter your details below to access the guide.

For all of our latest thinking, please visit our Articles page: https://www.hughesetal.com.au/articles