Simon Blakeney MSc MBCS MIET is the Founder & Creative Director at Magma Squid Ltd. Magma Squid Ltd was founded in June 2026.
Simon was previously a Technical Account Manager at Epic Games. He is an Unreal Engine, Twinmotion, and XR expert. His thought leadership contributed to the evolution of Epic’s ecosystem of software products and the generation of publicly available resources for end users in the community. In his capacity as a dedicated specialist for many of Epic’s key enterprise accounts, Simon helped firms successfully adopt cutting-edge real-time solutions. This included providing guidance on the integration and scaling of the many software solutions under the Unreal Engine umbrella and how to produce interactive worlds with the advantage of AR, VR, and LiDAR technologies. Simon worked closely with a multitude of Epic development teams, bringing industry insights that defined technical roadmaps. Prior to Epic, Simon was part of the Advanced Digital Engineering group within Ove Arup & Partners, where he developed bespoke solutions for a wide range of advanced AEC use cases. Simon also led the in-house LiDAR scanning capability, which included projects for Premier League stadiums, UNESCO world heritage sites, cave systems, art galleries, power stations, blast analysis, hostile vehicle mitigation, counter-terrorism, CCTV analysis, coastal erosion, right to light studies, acoustic analysis surveys, accurate visual representations and heritage among many other use cases. Before joining Arup, Simon worked for GMJ Design, a leading 3D visualisation company in London, specialising in visual impact assessments, high-end architectural visualisation and innovative immersive environments. After completing his Masters degree, Simon joined QinetiQ, formally the UK Defence Evaluation & Research Agency as a Research Scientist, working on projects for both the Maritime Combat Systems Integration group in Portsmouth, and the Force Protection Engineering group in Farnborough. Want to work together?