Why are we called Vogal Group?

31 December 2025

We are often asked why are we called Vogal Group?

A company's name is a fundamental part of its identity, and many have their roots in something that inspired the founders of the business. So, we set out to find the meaning behind the word “Vogal”. In Cornish, “Vogal” is a historical mining term for a natural cavity or cavern. That didn’t seem relevant, so we dug deeper and did some further research.

“Vogal” is also a Portuguese word with two main meanings. Firstly, it means a vowel (letters a, e, i, o and u). Secondly, it is a voting member of a council or jury, often without a specific leadership role. Apparently, it is derived from the Latin phrase littera vocalis, meaning "vocal letter". Again, we couldn’t see the relevance to a M&E project engineering contractor.

So, we asked our Chairman, Ben Atkins, who founded the first “Vogal” business in 1983. He was working as a self-employed mechanical contractor for an international manufacturing customer in Germany. He tells us: “The name ‘Vogal’ was a misspelling due to my ignorance. I meant for the business to be called ‘Vogel’. In German this translates to ‘bird’ or ‘fly high’ and symbolises exceeding expectations. As our first customer was an international company, I felt this name was fitting.” As the business has grown our name has evolved from "Vogal Industrial Installations” into the “Vogal Group" name we are familiar with today. A name that is a proven and respected M&E project engineering company, across several sectors, for over 40 years and to think we started as a typo...