Nigel Dancey studied architecture at Oxford Polytechnic and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Washington DC, graduating in 1989 with a first class honours degree. He joined Foster + Partners in 1990, becoming involved in numerous competitions including Jiushi Tower, Shanghai. His early built projects include Yaraicho - a pair of office buildings in Tokyo, Japan and projects for Samsung Motors in Seoul, Korea. He was subsequently project architect for the addition to Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska – Foster + Partners’ first building in the United States.

He was promoted to associate in 1993 and to project director the following year. He was the partner in charge, from inception through to completion in 2004, of the award-winning McLaren Technology Centre Headquarters in Woking, Surrey. He became senior partner and Group 6 leader in 2004, and has since been responsible for a large team of architects, now some 160-strong. His experience spans a wide range of projects across North America, Canada, Europe and the Middle East, from education buildings to towers, urban masterplans, hotels, resorts and cultural buildings.

Education and research buildings include the Robert Gordon University Faculty of Management in Aberdeen, Stanford University’s Center for Clinical Sciences and the award-winning Clark Center, and the Faculty of Pharmacy for the University of Toronto. Closer to home, he has overseen the design of a secondary school - Langley Academy - and he is currently responsible for the Yale University School of Management project.

More recently his responsibilities have included headquarters buildings for EnCana in Calgary and Caja Madrid in Madrid, mixed-use towers in Vancouver and Istanbul, and several hotels and resorts including the Aldwych Hotel in London and a sustainable resort in Mauritius.

He has been awarded an Honorary Senior Fellowship by the Design Futures Council and became an executive director of the practice and a member of design board in 2007.