An hour with Darren Taylor flashes quickly by. Ten years into wind operations, after nearly three decades in the Corps of Royal Engineers with deployments to Bosnia, Kosovo, the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan, he distils his philosophy to a single foundation: people.

‘I live by human factors now,’ he says. ‘It means an environment with very open communication; transparency builds massive trust.’

That can be a challenge in a male‑dominated world of maintenance engineering. How do you get men to open up? Taylor doesn’t hesitate. ‘Approachability. Bringing a personality where you can be approached. That environment of psychological safety, where it doesn’t matter who you are, you can speak up or be approached, questioned, challenged about anything I’ve done or said, as long as we are talking appropriately and keeping a safe environment.’

He links the point to his previous life. ‘A big problem in the Army is still suicide. Men are not talking enough. But there’s nothing wrong with having a conversation with each other. And I do think that groups of people talk better when you have a qualification that the group recognises, or relevant expertise – that creates empathy. This is a male‑dominated industry, but there are females coming in more, and that’s a massive plus in bringing in diversity; it opens up conversations and breaks down the stigma of men not talking.’

From regiment to renewables 
Taylor’s move into wind in 2015, as an operations manager in northern Scotland, felt familiar in the right ways. ‘There were geographically‑split teams, which were close‑knit. They accepted me with open arms and made my transition easy. I came into a big company with lots of procedures and protocols, and a very risk‑based approach to work. There was a tight team ethos. These were all things that I recognised from my time in the military. And it was great to be out in the open in fantastic landscapes, where most of the onshore wind farms were.’

He admits starting out ‘completely green’ in renewables. ‘I knew about mechanics and electrics. For me, I wanted to get up into the turbines with the teams and understand. Empathy was massively important. I spent time travelling; up at 5am, driving north, up into the turbines, getting myself qualified to be part of the works party, and just help and then have a conversation and connect with people. As I progressed, I needed the knowledge and experience to link back into the conversations I’d had.’

From service manager leading a technical team across six or seven Highland wind farms, his roles expanded: operations specialist and troubleshooter focused on improvements, risk and opportunities; project management supporting the integration of the Senvion service business; multi‑brand service strategy with wins on non‑OEM fleets across Europe; and a global transformation role implementing improvement measures. He returned to Northern Europe and Middle East operations to lead Technical Project Managers, then Operations Excellence, and since October 2024 has served as Head of Onshore Operations for the UK & Ireland.

‘I believe I’m only as good as the network I have working in a large organisation, internally and externally,’ he reflects. ‘The diversity of roles has allowed me to gather knowledge and experience which I can use and pass on.’ He still maintains his operational qualifications and gets to site as often as he can.

Leadership lessons 
Taylor’s views on operations and safety are shaped by a lifetime of leading and learning in teams.

‘Leadership is about getting people to do things that they potentially wouldn’t want to do on their own sometimes. It’s also about projecting your personality. That’s about communication, trust and transparency about information that I have with individuals or groups.’

He underlines clarity of intent: ‘When you speak and ask or give directions about – not how things are going to be done but what you need to get things done – there’s a trust in the request. I need people to trust in what I’m asking, and understanding the reason for it and the outcome, so that they feel more comfortable and clearer about what they have to do.’

The civilian world, he notes, requires a different touch than the military. ‘In the transition out of the military, I realised early on that I don’t have a captive audience in the civilian environment. Where I could be very direct and give my intent in the military, that’s not clear in the civil world. There is more emotion, and opinions, and there needs to be the freedom to hear feelings and receive feedback. For me, it’s about being detailed in how I explain things, to make sure people have the resources – physical or information – to reach back or have signposted. Also, there is always the need to make space for conversation and feedback about what’s happening. That can sometimes be quite proscriptive in the military… In industry, renewables is young, so there are a lot of things that come from left [field] and are unanticipated.’

That mindset is very much present tense. ‘I was on a psychological safety training course this week. We [at Siemens Gamesa] are massive on open communication, transparency – I call it working out loud. Knowledge isn’t power anymore – the power of knowledge is how much you can share it.’

He also champions reflective practice. ‘One of my safety strategies is around trying to understand decisions that we make, and having safety moments and safety conversations where if you do make decisions that are probably not the right ones, and which may have caused something that raised risks or hurt somebody, that it’s good to talk about why you made such a decision. Was it part of the process or something outside the process that led to that?’

Chairing SafetyOn 
Taylor first got involved with SafetyOn – the safety organisation for onshore wind, supported by the Energy Institute – in 2024, and became Chair in December 2025. He was struck by a gap. ‘When the role was coming up for renewal, I looked at the list of previous Chairs and recognised that the Chair hadn’t been represented by any of the OEMs. I also recognised the value of SafetyOn and wanted to become more involved.’

He has set four priorities for his two‑year tenure: stronger engagement with operators in the Republic of Ireland as SafetyOn expands its scope; building communities and workstreams to move faster on shared priorities; communicating SafetyOn’s work more deeply into all levels of the industry; and sustaining the organisation’s collaboration with the health and safety authorities across Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

• Further reading: ‘Profile: Technician to company director in 15 years’. Find out how former wind turbine technician Ryan Penman made company director less than 20 years after starting his career as one of the second-ever intake of the first wind turbine technician apprenticeship at Siemens Gamesa.
• ‘Extending the life of onshore wind turbines’. Discover how the SafetyOn forum, in partnership with the Energy Institute, is focused on delivering good practice guides and resources for effective life extension management of onshore wind turbines.