Lead Quantity Surveyor Assurance Consultant

About the Role

Key Responsibilities Team Leadership

• Lead, organize, and supervise the Quantity Surveying and Cost Assurance team, allocating personnel across contractor packages, construction areas, work fronts, and commercial reviews in line with project progress and priorities.
• Mentor and provide professional and technical direction to Quantity Surveyor Assurance Associates and other cost/commercial personnel, including onboarding and training as the team scales.
• Review and quality-control valuations, quantity assessments, cost reports, variation assessments, claims reviews, commercial observations, and assurance reports prepared by members of the team before issue.
• hange proposals to determine their validity, scope, quantities, rates, pricing basis, and contractual entitlement.
• Independently measure and value variations arising from design changes, additional works, omissions, substitutions, revised specifications, site conditions, or other approved changes.
• Assess the cost implications of changes and advise the Employer on the reasonableness and commercial impact of proposed variations.
• Verify whether claimed variations are genuinely outside the original contracted scope.
• Review new rates, star rates, build-up rates, quotations, and cost substantiation submitted by contractors.
• Maintain and monitor variation registers and provide independent reporting on approved, pending, rejected, and potential variations.
• Identify emerging scope changes and potential cost exposure before they materially affect the project budget.

Claims and Contractual Cost Assurance

• Review contractor financial and commercial claims, including claims relating to additional works, prolongation, disruption, escalation, acceleration, loss and expense, and other cost-related matters.
• Assess claims against applicable contract provisions, contemporaneous project records, measured quantities, approved instructions, programme information, and supporting evidence.
• Identify unsupported, duplicated, inflated, or inadequately substantiated elements of contractor claims.
• Work with technical discipline leads and project management personnel to establish the technical and factual basis of commercial claims.
• Provide independent professional recommendations on contractor commercial entitlements and disputed valuations.
• Support the Employer in commercial negotiations, claim resolution, variation settlement, and final account discussions where required.

Cost Control and Financial Monitoring

• Monitor committed, certified, forecast, and projected project costs against approved budgets and contract values.
• Review project cost reports and independently assess cost performance, expenditure trends, forecast cost-to-complete, and anticipated final cost.
• Monitor cost movements resulting from variations, claims, scope changes, procurement changes, construction progress, and other project developments.
• Identify potential cost overruns, commercial risks, budget pressures, and emerging financial exposures.
• Prepare independent cost forecasts and commercial assessments to support management decision-making.
• Review contractor cost reports and reconcile reported financial progress against independently verified physical progress.
• Support earned-value, progress, and cost-performance reviews where required.
• Identify discrepancies between financial progress and actual construction progress and recommend corrective action.

Contract and Procurement Assurance

• Review relevant contract documents, Bills of Quantities, pricing schedules, scope documents, tender documentation, purchase orders, and commercial conditions.
• Verify contractor compliance with commercial and payment provisions of applicable contracts.
• Review procurement-related cost information where required, including quotations, purchase values, subcontract packages, provisional sums, and prime cost items.
• Assess the commercial reasonableness of proposed rates and prices using contractual rates, market benchmarks, historical project information, quotations, and other appropriate evidence.
• Support procurement-compliance reviews within IPMC's wider independent audit mandate.
• Identify commercial and contractual risks arising from incomplete scope definition, procurement changes, contractor submissions, and project execution.

Progress and Payment Certification

• Independently verify contractor physical progress as a basis for interim payment certification.
• Work closely with engineering discipline assurance teams to confirm that claimed work has been properly executed and meets the required technical and quality standards before recommending payment.
• Reconcile contractor claimed quantities and percentages against verified site progress.
• Review materials-on-site claims and verify quantities, ownership, storage, condition, documentation, and contractual eligibility where applicable.
• Maintain appropriate audit trails supporting all recommendations for contractor payment certification.
• Provide independent professional opinions on the accuracy, completeness, validity, and reasonableness of contractor payment applications.
• Support certification of interim payments, milestone payments, variation payments, retention releases, and final payments in accordance with applicable contractual requirements.

Final Accounts and Project Close-Out

• Lead the independent review and reconciliation of contractor final accounts.
• Verify final measured quantities, approved variations, claims settlements, provisional sums, omissions, additions, and other commercial adjustments.
• Reconcile cumulative payments against final contractual entitlement.
• Review final account documentation and identify unresolved commercial matters before close-out.
• Support settlement and agreement of final accounts between the Employer and contractors.
• Maintain comprehensive commercial records and audit trails to support project close-out and future audits.

Assurance Reporting and Risk Management

• Prepare and review Quantity Surveying Assurance Reports, Cost Assurance Reports, Payment Certification Reports, Variation Assessment Reports, Claims Reviews, Commercial Risk Reports, and monthly project reports.
• Maintain registers of commercial risks, claims, variations, payment applications, certifications, and outstanding commercial matters.
• Identify cost, contractual, commercial, measurement, and payment risks and recommend appropriate corrective or preventive actions.
• Track agreed commercial actions through to satisfactory close-out.
• Present significant commercial findings, cost exposures, disputed items, and recommendations to the Project Director and Employer's representatives.
• Provide independent professional opinions on project cost status, contractor valuations, commercial exposure, forecast final cost, and financial completion readiness.
• Maintain independence, objectivity, transparency, and appropriate documentation throughout all commercial assurance activities.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree, minimum, in Quantity Surveying, Construction Economics, Cost Management, Commercial Management, or a closely related discipline; a Master's degree is an advantage.
• Minimum 12 years of relevant post-qualification experience, including demonstrated experience in a lead or supervisory capacity on industrial, oil & gas, petrochemical, refinery, fertilizer, power, manufacturing, or major infrastructure projects.
• Professional registration or chartered status such as MRICS, FRICS, NIQS, RQS, or membership/registration with another recognized professional quantity surveying or cost management body.
• Demonstrated experience leading or supervising multi-person quantity surveying, cost, or commercial teams, including mentoring junior and mid-level professionals.
• Strong working knowledge of quantity surveying, measurement, cost management, contract administration, valuations, variations, claims, cost forecasting, and final accounts.
• Strong ability to interpret Bills of Quantities, engineering drawings, technical specifications, contracts, schedules of rates, construction programmes, cost reports, and project documentation.
• Demonstrated experience independently measuring and verifying major industrial and infrastructure

Preferred Certifications and Professional Memberships

• MRICS / FRICS
• NIQS membership and/or relevant Quantity Surveyor professional registration
• PMP
• Certified Cost Professional (CCP) or equivalent cost engineering certification
• AACE International certification
• RICS qualifications relevant to Quantity Surveying and Construction
• FIDIC contract management or contract administration certification
• ISO 9001 Lead Auditor
• Construction Management certification
• Claims Management / Contract Management certification
• Commercial Management certification
• Other equivalent certifications relevant to quantity surveying, cost engineering, contracts, commercial