first, he built houses and hospitals. then he built a global following.
The YouTube sensation and Sunday Times bestseller talks turning complex engineering into engaging storytelling, and making construction cool
So, who is Fred Mills?
Fred: I’m a filmmaker, author and the founder of The B1M [YouTube series showcasing the world’s most ambitious construction, architecture, and engineering projects] but I started out on a fairly conventional construction career path. I was the child who was permanently building something: LEGO cities, garden dens and highly questionable structures made from abandoned scaffolding. I followed that interest into architectural engineering and design management at Loughborough University, then joined a major contractor as a graduate design manager.
I was helping to deliver schools, hospitals and affordable housing, but whenever I told people I worked in construction, they pictured bricks, mud and wheelbarrows. There was an extraordinary disconnect between what the industry actually did and how society saw it. I decided to change how construction was understood. I began making videos during evenings and weekends, eventually left my job and turned The B1M into a full-time media company. Today we have around four million YouTube subscribers and 32 million people watching per month. I employ a team of 18 people working across London and Sydney and I feel incredibly proud of what I have built.
What motivated you to communicate construction’s importance, and what made The B1M so popular?
Fred: I’ve always known construction was cool, it’s just that we weren’t really showing people why. When I joined a main contractor I was working on the pre-construction phase of a major school-building programme that would affect how thousands of children began their lives, yet my friends and family thought I had gone into a dead-end job. Industry reporting tends to be very technical or serve as a trade press, and we only seem to get mainstream coverage when projects go wrong.
The B1M worked because we stopped expecting people to come looking for construction and took construction to the places where people already spent their time. We treated it as mainstream culture, not a niche trade subject. We began with the human question: why does this project matter? and then used great visuals, clear explanations and strong storytelling to bring the engineering to life. We also try not to make promotional films. The audience is intelligent. They want the excitement, but they also want the difficult questions about cost, carbon, labour, displacement and who ultimately benefits. That combination of wonder and journalistic credibility has been central to building trust.
On the B1M YouTube channel
[It] worked because we stopped expecting people to come looking for construction and took construction to the places where people already spent their time. We treated it as mainstream culture, not a niche trade subject.
Where is the industry going wrong with education?
Fred: Too much construction outreach begins with the industry rather than the audience. We start with job titles, technical processes and lists of qualifications. We tell a young person they could become a quantity surveyor before we have explained that they could help shape a city, protect communities from flooding or build the hospitals their families may one day depend on. We also tend to communicate outputs rather than outcomes. We announce that a team poured a slab, installed a bridge deck or achieved practical completion, but rarely explain what that unlocks for people.
The second mistake is believing that a careers fair, a PDF or one school visit amounts to a communications strategy. This has to be sustained, high-quality storytelling on the platforms where audiences already are. It should show the extraordinary range of people and skills involved, from design, robotics and data to trades, logistics, finance and environmental science. We also need honesty and authenticity. Young people can see through corporate gloss. Showing the challenges alongside the achievements makes the sector more credible, not less attractive.
What’s the coolest thing your work has enabled you to do?
Fred: Now that’s a tough question! Standing on the roof of Merdeka 118 in Malaysia was incredible. I also love meeting different construction teams around the world. But it’s got to be walking inside the enormous nuclear-fusion reactor that’s under construction in the south of France. I have stood inside the Elizabeth Tower restoration, interviewed Sir Richard Branson, and journeyed through extraordinary tunnels, but entering the partially constructed tokamak at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) felt different. This is a machine designed to recreate the process that powers the sun, built through a collaboration of dozens of nations. Surrounded by this cathedral of steel, concrete and scientific ambition, I felt like I had stepped into a potential turning point in human history. Fusion is not guaranteed to work commercially, and ITER is an experiment rather than a power station, but the idea that construction can physically create the conditions needed to test something so profound is astonishing. It was one of those rare moments when the scale of the engineering and the scale of its possible impact hit you simultaneously.
On the ITER
Surrounded by this cathedral of steel, concrete and scientific ambition, I felt like I had stepped into a potential turning point in human history.
Photo (above): International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Photo: ITER
Why does construction still struggle to be recognised as one of the world’s most important, impactful industries?
Fred: Partly because, when construction succeeds, it disappears. You wake up in a home, drink clean water, travel along a road or railway, work through a digital network and enter a functioning hospital without consciously thinking about the people who made any of that possible. Good infrastructure becomes the silent background to everyday life. We tend to notice it only when it fails.
The industry also has a cultural habit of underplaying its own achievements. On an extraordinary project, people will often tell you about the two things that went wrong that morning rather than the city-changing accomplishment taking shape around them. That practical focus helps get things built, but it makes us poor advocates for our wider impact. Then there is fragmentation. A project is divided across clients, consultants, contractors, trades and packages, so nobody consistently owns and communicates the complete story. Construction has shaped every period of human progress. We need to become much better at connecting the steel and concrete to the lives, economies and societies they enable.
What’s the biggest misconception about it? How does that affect its ability to attract investment, talent and support?
Fred: It’s that construction is a narrow, low-skilled, old-fashioned activity that happens behind a hoarding. In reality, it is an enormous intersection of design, science, engineering, manufacturing, logistics, finance, data, politics and skilled craftsmanship. It includes people programming robots and modelling climate risk as well as people physically assembling structures on site. Both are essential. That misconception shrinks the talent pool before we have even begun. Young people who want to use technology, address climate change or deliver social impact may never realise that construction offers them one of the largest possible platforms for doing so. It also affects investment and political support. When infrastructure is understood merely as disruption and cost, it becomes easier to postpone. When people understand the productivity, resilience, housing, health and economic activity it enables, it becomes an investment in society’s future. Perception is therefore not a cosmetic problem for the industry. It has material consequences for whether we have the people, capital and public permission required to build.
On construction’s public image
The industry has a cultural habit of underplaying its own achievements. On an extraordinary project, people will often tell you about the two things that went wrong that morning rather than the city-changing accomplishment taking shape around them.
How can our sector better communicate its role in society?
Fred: We need to begin with life, not construction. Instead of saying, “We have completed a new flood tunnel,” explain that thousands of families can now go to sleep without fearing that their homes will be underwater after the next storm. Don’t lead with the square metres of a school; lead with the opportunities it will create for generations of children. Good communication establishes a clear chain of cause and effect between what is being built and how society changes as a result. It introduces the people doing the work, makes technical complexity understandable and shows the long-term consequences, whether positive or negative.
We should use the full spectrum of media, from short-form social content to documentaries, podcasts, classrooms and mainstream journalism. But the answer is not simply to make more content, it is to make better, more authentic, human content consistently. That’s more pertinent than ever with the rise of AI. At a moment when construction is asked to address housing, transport, energy, climate adaptation and economic growth, its story is fundamentally that of where society goes next. We should communicate it with that level of importance.
Tell us about your book Mega Builds: Ten Colossal Construction Projects That Will Change Our World
Fred: After more than a decade of travelling the world and filming incredible projects, I had accumulated an extraordinary set of experiences that simply couldn’t all be captured in one YouTube video. I wanted to bring 10 of those projects together into a single narrative: not simply to explain how they were being built, but to examine why they existed, what they revealed about us and how they might alter the trajectory of society. The longer form gave me room to connect engineering with politics, economics, climate, power, ambition and human psychology. It also allowed me to revisit projects and reflect on what I had learned from the people behind them. I had heard plenty of horror stories about writing books and began the process with some trepidation, but honestly ended up loving it.
The book was published by Penguin Random House in May 2026 and became an instant Sunday Times bestseller, which was incredibly humbling. But the achievement I care about most is helping readers to look at the built world differently and recognise that our future is already being authored around us.
Check out the B1M on YouTube to get the inside track on amazing feats of infrastructure Image 1: Frankfurt Airport Image 2: Norway Mega Tunnel Images: Courtesy of Fred Mills / The B1M
If you had to pick one of its feats of engineering, which most profoundly informs the future of our man-made world?
Fred: Am I allowed to pick two?! I would choose ITER, with Tokyo’s £109bn resilience programme a very close second. ITER matters because it represents the point at which one of humanity’s biggest scientific ambitions has to become a physical reality. There is no guarantee that ITER will lead directly to commercial fusion energy. But even its difficulties are producing knowledge, specialist skills, new supply chains and engineering advances. If fusion ultimately becomes a dependable source of low-carbon power, its effect would extend into almost everything: industry, transport, water production, digital infrastructure and geopolitics. It shows construction acting as the bridge between a scientific idea and a possible new phase of civilisation.
Are megaprojects built for people or prestige?
Fred: That’s a really interesting question. The truth is that they can be built for both, and the two motives are not always mutually exclusive. Projects such as the Channel Tunnel or Tokyo’s resiliency programme respond to clear public needs, while others may deliberately use spectacle to attract tourism, investment and international attention.
Very few people directly need a neutrino observatory inside a mountain, but fundamental research can eventually transform medicine, computing or our understanding of the universe. Prestige can be productive. It can focus political will, unlock capital and push engineers to develop new techniques. It can also mask weak business cases, displacement, environmental damage or benefits that flow largely to a small elite. The test should not simply be whether a project is dramatic. We need to ask who gains, who pays, who carries the risk and what remains after the headlines have moved on.
On communication
Instead of saying, ‘We have completed a new flood tunnel,’ explain that thousands of families can now go to sleep without fearing that their homes will be underwater after the next storm.
Photo: Fred Mills
Human ambition versus physical limits: why are we obsessed with breaking records? Will future engineers focus on sustainability instead of superlatives?
Fred: Record breaking is a very human shorthand for progress. The tallest, longest, fastest or deepest is easy to understand, and throughout history people have built to test limits, demonstrate power and leave a permanent mark. Those pursuits are not entirely frivolous. They force innovation. Building higher advances our understanding of structures, wind, materials, vertical transport and construction logistics. The techniques can later filter into more ordinary projects.
But the definition of achievement is changing. A building that is merely taller is no longer enough. We are entering an era in which the most impressive project might have the lowest whole-life carbon, deliver affordable homes at unprecedented speed, withstand a century of climate risk or regenerate an ecosystem while serving millions of people.
I don’t think sustainability will replace human ambition; I think it will redefine it. The engineers of the future will still chase superlatives, but I hope the records we celebrate will increasingly be about performance, resilience and public value rather than height alone.
The world’s biggest city: how long can engineering keep it functioning against nature?
Fred: Tokyo is huge. It’s home to almost 40 million people. The city’s incredible resiliency programme demonstrates that engineering can keep a vast urban area functioning for generations, but also that it can never defeat nature entirely. Resilience is a continuing negotiation. Defences need to be maintained, regulations updated, citizens trained and infrastructure repeatedly adapted as the risks change. Tokyo’s strength is not one invincible structure. It is a vast, layered system addressing earthquakes, floods, fires, volcanic ash, power failures and disease simultaneously.
Building a city of that scale today, I would begin with a risk map rather than an architectural rendering. I would look for a temperate, elevated inland location with reliable freshwater, strong renewable-energy potential and good geological stability, outside major floodplains, fault zones, wildfire corridors and areas of extreme heat. It could remain connected to ports through fast rail rather than sitting directly on a vulnerable coastline. I know that’s a list that would horrify estate agents; it doesn’t leave many places open! It’s interesting that many data centres and indeed the seed vault are built in Scandinavia towards the Arctic Circle. That seems to be a very stable corner of the globe.
But cities are not pieces on a chessboard. Tokyo exists where it does because of centuries of geography, trade, culture and economic development. The more realistic lesson is how we retrofit existing cities to become safer, rather than imagining that billions of people can simply begin again elsewhere.
What would a city that’s designed for maximum efficiency actually look like?
Fred: It would be polycentric rather than built around one congested centre: a network of dense, mixed-use neighbourhoods where most daily needs are within walking or cycling distance, connected by extremely reliable high-capacity public transport. Energy, water and digital systems would be distributed, so one failure could not disable the entire city. The important qualification is that maximum efficiency should not mean eliminating every apparent redundancy. A perfectly streamlined city can be dangerously brittle. Spare capacity, alternative routes and local energy storage may look inefficient until a disaster occurs. The LINE was an interesting provocation about density and car-free living, but geometry alone does not create a successful city. The real measure of efficiency is how little time, energy and money people must spend accessing a healthy, fulfilling life.
On the future
A building that is merely taller is no longer enough. We are entering an era in which the most impressive project might have the lowest whole-life carbon, deliver affordable homes at unprecedented speed, withstand a century of climate risk or regenerate an ecosystem while serving millions of people.
How can we ensure developments contribute to public good when infrastructure planning is fragmented?
Fred: We have to plan places as systems rather than approving isolated objects. Homes, transport, energy, water, schools, healthcare and digital connectivity are interdependent, yet they are often funded, designed and delivered through separate institutions with different timescales. A new housing district without transport or healthcare is not a successful housing project. It’s an incomplete place.
We need long-term spatial plans supported by multi-year funding and accountable delivery bodies empowered to coordinate across those boundaries. Communities must be involved early enough to shape the brief, rather than being asked to comment after the major decisions have already been made. Public benefit should also be contractual and measurable: affordable housing integrated within developments, accessible public space, local employment and training, environmental performance and long-term stewardship. Land-value increases created by public infrastructure should help fund those benefits.
What do you think will be the next world-changing megabuild that’s not built yet?
Fred: The first genuinely commercial, grid-connected fusion power station. ITER is an experiment: its purpose is to prove and advance the science and engineering. The next transformative step is a plant that can generate dependable electricity for ordinary users at a commercially viable cost. When that first plant operates successfully, the structure itself may not look as visually spectacular as a kilometre-high tower or a mirrored city, but its impact could be much greater. It would be the moment humanity moves from attempting to recreate the sun to actually plugging one into the grid
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