He is a prominent structural design engineer with over 25 years of leadership at AKT II, formerly Adams Kara Taylor. He has overseen projects in 50+ countries and led the practice to win over 400 design awards, including the Stirling Prize-winning Bloomberg European Headquarters in London and the demountable Seed Cathedral for Expo 2010 Shanghai.

Raised in the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, he focuses on integrating design and technology to solve global challenges. He actively promotes engineering to young people through AKT II’s outreach programs and serves as President of Open City and a Trustee of The African Futures Institute, supporting architectural education and technology in Africa.

In 2023, Albert Williamson-Taylor was the first Black Engineer to be awarded the IStructE International Gold Medal, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to structural engineering, design and society.

In addition to his professional work, Williamson-Taylor has taught at the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA), where he led technical tutoring in the avant-garde Design Research Laboratory (DRL). He has also served as a design-review panellist in London boroughs and holds fellowships with the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) and the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Albert Williamson-Taylor studied engineering at the University of Bristol and Bradford University from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, while working variously as a site labourer, a chef, a nightclub doorman and an overnight factory worker, in addition to tutoring younger students and mentoring youth offenders.