The origins of Rider Levett Bucknall trace back over two centuries to 1785 when Henry Cooper, the son of a master carpenter, founded a firm of Quantity Surveyors in Reading, England. Henry Cooper and Sons opened its second office in London in 1799. Throughout the nineteenth century the firm carried out a number of engineering projects under the direction of I.K. Brunel, the famous Victorian Civil Engineer.
In 1895 Henry Cooper's grandsons sold the London practice to John Rider Hunt. A partnership agreement was signed between the London practice and the original practice in Reading and after John Rider Hunt's death in 1910, the London firm was renamed Rider Hunt and Partners.
The firm later opened offices in provincial centers throughout England, and in 1948 Rider Hunt and partners first overseas office was opened in Melbourne, Australia by Harry Wexler.
Bucknall Austin first opened in the United Kingdom in 1947 and has since successfully grown to over 400 people with offices throughout the UK.
Levett & Bailey was established as a local firm of chartered quantity surveyors in Hong Kong in 1962. From a modest beginning, the practice has grown with the economic expansion of Hong Kong to become one of the largest in the world, with branch offices throughout China
In 1992 Rider Hunt joined forces with Construction Services Limited (CSL), a firm specialized in construction cost estimating, to form Rider Hunt Levett & Bailey. CSL was founded by Jack Matthews in Hawaii in 1968 and operated throughout the Pacific in such places as Guam, Diego Garcia, Kwajalein, and the Philippines.
On June 25, 2007, Rider Hunt / Levett & Bailey and Bucknall Austin joined to become the Rider Levett Bucknall Global Practice representing more than 2000 people in 60 offices and offering a variety of construction consulting services in every continent.