Location: Cambridge

Duration: Permanent

Salary: £50,000 to £80,000 (DoE)

Job Description

The successful candidate will join one of the largest family-run construction businesses, dealing with exciting and challenging projects across multiple sectors. For this role, you must be ambitious, self-motivated, and able to work independently and within our team of like-minded individuals.

You will have excellent verbal and written communication skills and need to hold a clean driving license. You must be a conscientious, organised, and proactive team player, highly motivated and committed to achieving company targets and always focused on the task. You should be able to use your initiative and prioritise effectively to meet tight deadlines, working independently or as part of a team.

This is an office-based role, working alongside and with the existing Estimating Team in Cambridge. There will be the flexibility to work in different offices, depending on location.

Experience in leading Commercial, MOD, Education and Healthcare projects would be ideal but not essential. Also experience within various procurement routes such as D&B, Traditional and 2 Stage, valuing from £2million to circa £30million would be useful but not essential. Our senior team will give further guidance and training. Our current working sectors include healthcare, education, defence, R&D, life sciences, commercial and industrial and some residential (apartments and student residential).

This role would be suited to an intermediate estimator looking for his next move with a financially secure and stable organisation that is expanding and developing into new regions. Alternatively, this would also suit an experienced estimator who is looking to move to a larger company, share their experience with a developing estimating team, and develop a career with a forward-thinking business that aims to promote from within.

The Estimator Role:

• Producing cost plans from RIBA stage 0 (elementally on historical data) to stage 3 (fully measured and rated). Ideally, the ability to price from first principles is needed.
• Taking off from drawings using Autodesk Design Review to produce detailed cost plans and quantity checks on the produced BQs
• Leading the tender enquiry process
• Allocation of elemental BQ items into works packages
• Subcontractor comparisons & identifying scope gaps
• Working with the supply chain to provide value engineering options
• Pricing of site preliminaries
• Providing information on key risks and opportunities at tender settlement
• Using BCIS data to elementally benchmark TPIs for inflation forecasting & rebasing with location factorisation
• Pricing competitive tenders under the direction of the estimating director
• Reviewing contracts and other commercial data
• Attending client meetings
• Presenting tender information to project teams
• Reviewing tender documents before pricing and completing the ‘Enquiry Checklist’ to             determine the pricing level
• Taking off groundwork’s packages 
• Completing ‘Risk and Opportunity’ Registers
• Liaising with the buying department to obtain material quotations
• Pricing groundworks on Labour, Plant and Materials basis for Pre-Construction Manager’s review
• Tender adjudication with the Commercial Director
• Pricing variations and additions
• Creating material lists and obtaining and comparing quotations
• Conducting site visits

Key skills required:

Team player, ability to work under pressure & strong time management skills

Good organisation skills 

Computer skills: You need to be proficient in Microsoft Office packages. Experience with Causeway and Excel estimating software is desired. 

Excellent spoken and written English.

A good, clear telephone manner is essential as there will be client interaction during the daily work, including team meetings. 

Demonstrating a strong work ethic throughout their career is essential. 

Strong numeracy skills with the ability to think commercially

Contact: For more information, call us at +44 (0)1256 817878. To apply for this vacancy, contact Michaela Francis at mfrancis@roberthurstltd.co.uk or Jorge Harrow at jharrow@roberthurstltd.co.uk or complete the application form below, and we will contact you.