In this paper, the author looks back at the developments in everyday investigations, testing and analysis that have taken place in geotechnical engineering during his 40 year career in the industry to date. Demonstrating how the use of public information freely available on the internet can allow geotechnical practitioners to reduce early project risk, the author goes on to discuss and explore modern equipment and techniques that allow important information to be more-readily and less-intrusively recovered and processed; providing substantially better strength information and predictions of behaviour under load. The use of the computer to reduce human error and involvement in testing is discussed, alongside the obvious benefits now routinely possible through broader and more sophisticated and representative analysis techniques. Looking forward on the basis of past and recent technological progress, the author attempts to explore and predict the developments in geotechnical engineering that we might be likely to see over the coming 4 decades.