Quantity Surveyor, Estimator & Cost Planner
To be able to build a project – you must first go through a process of developing a design requirement and then produce feasibility to set rough budgets for the client. This process is normally handled by a design manager and quantity surveyor.
The second stage is to get financial backing from banks and financiers. For this process, banks need to know what the actual market has to say. Most banks will ask for pricing from builders. Depending on the documents and the design development a builder could either provide a cost plan or a quotation.
Basically, the banks are requesting for the theory of a project to be changed to reality. The disciplines between a QS to Estimator and Cost planner are very simple. At one point a QS will work for a client and a builder and thus could potentially do all three disciplines. Estimators would be less likely to work directly for a client however will often be asked to produces BOQ and cost plans. A professional cost planner would need to get their experience in the trenches at some times of their career.
But if you do one discipline for a long duration of time, your skill would obviously become a little rusty, this is more nervous tension about not being current and not really a skill issue. It is obviously better that the three disciplines get experience in all areas, however, in the greater business world you can fall victim to perfecting one skill and becoming stale in the others.
The good news is that the skills never go away and guidance from a colleague is always helpful. Networking within other organizations, discussing industry trends and practices is the trick to being current.
Skill sets can also be skewed by the size of the company that you work with or for. The internal processes with a tier 3 company would obviously be quite different from a tier 1 company.
Role of a Quantity Surveyor?
A university qualified to build professional who has extensive knowledge of building and contracts and are mainly focused on the measurement of the elements for a building. They are trained in all aspects of managing the contractual and financial side of construction projects.
These professionals would normally work directly for the client as a consultant or for builders.
When working for the client – their roles normally are directed at a feasibility to estimate costs (cost planning) or producing “Bill of Quantities” (BOQ) that the client can then call tenders from builders based on said BOQ.
Quantity Surveyors (QS) are often employed as client-side superintendents to manage the process of tendering, selecting a builder and managing the contractual & financial aspects of the construction phase.
A QS working for a builder can either be a part of a team focusing on quantities and working with an estimator to produce a tender submission or can also work in the project management genre, assisting the contracts teams or even being a project manager.
Role of an Estimator?
Estimators normally work primarily for builders, or sometimes could be the actual builder. Their role can capture both a QS role by pro-paring a builders BOQ plus rating and costing the BOQ using various pricing techniques. (Refer to Methods of Pricing above).
In a very simplistic description – a QS measures and an Estimator focuses on the pricing. But the reality is both estimators are very similar with varying degrees of focus. You will find speaking the majority of quantity surveyors – they tend to more academic and the estimator (or QS working for builders) will be more detail based and the practical side of the building process and build-ability.
Again a very simplistic difference – a consultant QS is global pricing and an estimator is closer to the pointed end of the pricing.
An estimators role primarily manages the bid process from a client RFT to hopefully winning the bid and then handing the bid over to the contracts team. Estimators can also be enlisted into the contracts process however the estimator will normally step away from a project at this handover.
The vast majority of estimators have building qualifications either certificate, diploma or degree level in the building, construction management, quantity surveying, or land economics as these tertiary qualification all have basic estimating training.
However, a building cadet will often start at an estimator before moving onto a contracts administrator role or site role. These cadets can also focus on estimating. Sometime a tradesperson could choose to come off the tools and train as an estimator providing they possess the computer and administration skills. Architects and design managers often make good estimators especially within the design & construct genre as they understand the built environment.
Estimating can be a very high pressured role and the individual needs to manage a number of processes, in a set deadline. Financially estimators, for this reason, get paid well, however, time management of a number of processes doesn’t mean anything unless you can capture the trade coverage and present a trade package that can win a bid. Building a subcontractor and supplier database and the development of a vast range of relationships within the industry is pivotal to longevity.
Estimators are judged by there win / loss ratio even though the final number is out of their power.
An estimator is mainly responsible for the priced criteria and sometimes the non-priced criteria can lose you a tender. The final preliminaries cost, overheads, and the margin is normally a management decision however the estimator lives and breathes by the win-loss ratio from a career perspective.
What is a Cost Planner?
A cost plan is a high-level estimate mainly based on like projects or industry rates based on square metres and benchmarking. A cost plan could be completed by either a QS or estimators.
A quotation to a more detailed price could be a team event between a QS or an estimator or just an estimator doing both the qualifying of materials and labour and then rating said quantities up to produce a price.
Within that process quantity surveyors, estimators & cost planners are involved at different times of the process.
Cost planning can be either a client side of the builder side process producing a high-level budget. Both estimators and QS can produce a cost plan, however, the really good cost planners have a “Dark Arts” skill set based on percentages and square metre rates. A cost planner is focused on the overall budget and doesn’t draw down into detail but rather historic cost analysis.
Quantity surveying is normally not particularly worried about the price but more as a consultant producing BOQ. and then delves into a cost plan to guide design. Their particular expertise is also having to deal and coordinate with the design consultants and draw down into the detail of the design. Then advise of budget tracking whilst also keeping the client happy.
An estimator works mainly for builders at the sharp end of pricing and it focuses on winning a bid. Their master is the builder and not focus on the client politics.
Now the amount of stress, type of stress and time in which a QS or estimator can work is then very different. To a point that within the industry the three disciplines are very similar however, they have been separated into three recruitment genres based on wage and ability.
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