While at school and studying for his science degree, Nigel worked in bakeries during vacations and had one stint as a labourer on a house building site for 7 weeks.  This was from 1972 – 1979.  On successfully completing his honours degree in Biology and Chemistry – in 1979 - he went back to working in a local bakery and developed his growing interest in trade union health and safety.  In June 1981 he was appointed as the first National Health and Safety Officer in the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers’ Union, at the age of 24. Thus becoming the youngest National Officer in the UK Trade Union movement at that time.

After 10 years with the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers' Union he became the first Director of Health and Environment at the GMB trade union in 1992. His Department supported around 25,000 workplace safety representatives and 10 Regional Health and Safety Officers who served around 840,000 members. After 10 years of success with the GMB Nigel left the union to return to his native home in the North East of England to establish BRYSON Consulting.

BRYSON Consulting

On the 1st January 2003, Nigel became a self-employed health and safety consultant – establishing BRYSON Consulting - after working nearly 22 years for the trade union movement at UK, European and International level.

Nigel established his consultancy to develop his expertise in workforce motivation to improve health and safety standards with clients so that they can become more efficient businesses and continuously improve their health and safety standards at the same time. 

By working with various organisations, he has shown that significant improvements in health and safety can be made by generating workforce enthusiasm and participation within a clear management framework. Whether the business prompter is legislation, rising insurance premiums, realisation of the true costs of workplace accidents or ill-health, sickness absence or just a desire to improve the business performance of an organisation, Nigel’s huge knowledge of practical based solutions can make prevention become a significant business objective. The key to this approach is for organisations to harness the knowledge of the workforce and use it to assist managers develop safe systems of work.