Lanes Group
Quantity Surveyor (United Utlities)
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Lanes Group is one of the UK's leading utility services providers, with almost 5,000 employees delivering essential services nationwide. As one Lanes Group, we combine specialist expertise, innovation, and a customer-first approach to provide industry-leading solutions across the sectors we serve. With annual revenues exceeding £650 million, we are a growing business that offers exciting opportunities, a collaborative culture, and the chance to make a real impact. Join us and be part of an organisation that values diversity, invests in development, and helps people build successful careers.
Purpose of the role
We are looking for a commercially focused Quantity Surveyor to take ownership of allocated workstreams across our United Utilities contract. This is a high-volume, low-value contract environment where accuracy, pace, strong process control, and attention to detail are essential. The successful candidate will be responsible for managing the end-to-end Quantity Surveying process across several workstreams, ensuring works are commercially controlled from instruction and delivery through to valuation, Application for Payment, WIP management, query resolution, and final account. The role will require someone who can work confidently with Operations, Planning, Finance, Administration, and client representatives to ensure works are valued correctly, costs are captured accurately, payments are progressed, and commercial entitlement is protected.
Location: Leyland
Hours: 40 Hours per week
Salary: Up to £45,000 (Dependent on experience)
Key Responsibilities
Quantity Surveying
- Take ownership of the QS process across allocated workstreams.
- Manage works from instruction/completion through to valuation, Application for Payment, payment resolution, and final account.
- Ensure each workstream is commercially controlled, accurately reported, and progressed in line with contract requirements.
- Manage a high volume of low-value jobs, ensuring pace, accuracy, and strong attention to detail.
- Ensure all works are valued correctly using the appropriate schedule of rates, agreed pricing mechanism, or commercial process.
- Identify and resolve commercial issues that could delay billing, payment, or final account agreement.
- Maintain strong audit trails and supporting evidence across allocated workstreams.
Applications for Payment and Revenue Recovery
- Prepare, review, and submit accurate Applications for Payment for allocated workstreams.
- Ensure submissions are complete, accurate, and supported by the required evidence.
- Review completed works to ensure all chargeable activities, materials, plant, subcontractors, and variations are captured.
- Progress client queries, rejections, and unpaid items in a timely manner.
- Work with Operations and Administration teams to obtain missing photos, measures, job notes, completion details, or supporting information.
- Track reasons for rejected or delayed items and support actions to reduce repeat issues.
- Ensure revenue is recognised accurately and in line with commercial governance.
WIP and Final Account Management
- Own and manage WIP across allocated workstreams.
- Review aged WIP regularly, challenging and progressing outstanding items.
- Identify blockers preventing billing, approval, or payment and drive actions to resolve them.
- Monitor outstanding AFPs, queried items, rejected items, and unpaid values.
- Support final account agreement across allocated workstreams, ensuring values are accurate and well evidenced.
- Escalate aged, high-risk, or recurring issues where required.
Cost Control, CVR and Margin Management
- Monitor cost, value, and margin performance across allocated workstreams.
- Manage CVR reporting for allocated workstreams, ensuring revenue, cost, margin, WIP, risk, and opportunity positions are accurate and clearly understood.
- Review job-level costs, including labour, plant, materials, subcontractors, and other direct costs.
- Challenge incorrect cost allocations and work with Finance and Operations to resolve coding or cost issues.
- Ensure all valid costs and chargeable items are captured within submissions.
- Identify trends in cost movement, productivity, non-recovery, or operational inefficiency.
- Provide clear commercial commentary on CVR performance, margin pressure, risks, and improvement opportunities.
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Contract and Change Management
- Understand and apply the relevant contract requirements.
- Identify, prepare, and submit Compensation Events, variations, or change requests where required.
- Ensure commercial entitlement is protected through accurate records, timely communication, and robust supporting evidence.
- Use agreed client and internal systems to manage submissions, records, queries, and approvals.
- Ensure scope changes, additional works, and variations are captured and progressed.
- Escalate contractual risks, recurring issues, or areas of commercial exposure promptly.
Operational, Client, and Stakeholder Management
- Work closely with operational teams to ensure completed works are commercially accurate and ready for submission.
- Build effective working relationships with client representatives to support smooth approval, query resolution, and payment progression.
- Respond to client queries professionally and promptly, ensuring responses are accurate, well evidenced, and commercially sound.
- Support client meetings and commercial reviews where required, providing clear updates on allocated workstreams, WIP, AFPs, rejections, risks, and actions.
- Build strong working relationships with Supervisors, Contract Managers, Planning, Finance, Administration, and Commercial teams.
- Support operational teams in understanding commercial requirements, including evidence standards, job completion quality, and coding accuracy.
- Challenge and influence internal teams where information is incomplete, inaccurate, or affecting commercial recovery.
- Communicate clearly on commercial actions, blockers, risks, and priorities.
- Maintain a collaborative client relationship while protecting the business’s commercial position.
Reporting and Analysis
- Support weekly and monthly commercial reporting for allocated workstreams.
- Provide clear updates on revenue, cost, margin, WIP, AFP progress, rejections, and aged items.
- Maintain trackers and reports to provide visibility of commercial performance.
- Analyse trends across rejections, under-recovery, aged WIP, and operational process issues.
- Use reporting to drive improved commercial control and better first-time submission quality.
Skills and Experience Required
Essential
- Experience as a Quantity Surveyor or Assistant Quantity Surveyor within utilities, construction, infrastructure, highways, water, wastewater, or a similar operational environment.
- Experience managing end-to-end QS processes, including Applications for Payment, WIP, cost control, CVR reporting, forecasting, and final account.
- Ability to manage several workstreams at once in a high-volume, fast-paced environment.
- Good understanding of schedule of rates contracts or similar pricing mechanisms.
- Strong attention to detail, with the ability to identify errors, missing evidence, incorrect costs, or incomplete submissions.
- Confident dealing with client representatives, including responding to queries, supporting commercial reviews, and progressing payment issues.
- Confident working with operational teams to obtain information and resolve commercial issues.
- Ability to challenge constructively where processes, costs, or submissions are not correct.
- Strong Excel and reporting skills.
- Good communication skills, with the ability to build relationships across Operations, Finance, Planning, Administration, and Commercial teams.
- Organised, proactive, and able to manage multiple deadlines and priorities.
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Desirable
- Experience working on water, wastewater, utilities, or framework contracts.
- Experience using client systems, commercial trackers, or contract management platforms.
- Experience managing rejections, aged WIP, AFP queries, or high-volume billing processes.
- Degree qualified in Quantity Surveying, Commercial Management, or a related discipline.
- RICS qualified, working towards RICS chartership, or open to professional development.
- Experience supporting process improvement, reporting automation, or commercial governance improvements.
Personal Attributes
- Commercially aware and detail-focused.
- Proactive, organised, and able to work at pace.
- Confident taking ownership of allocated workstreams.
- Strong communicator who can work well with operational, finance, and client teams.
- Comfortable challenging information where required.
- Resilient and able to manage a high-volume workload.
- Practical and solutions-focused.
- Able to spot trends, risks, and repeat issues.
- Collaborative, but able to protect the commercial position.
- Focused on accuracy, recovery, and continuous improvement.
Living the Company Values
By embedding our company's core values and purpose into each role, we ensure that every employee, regardless of their role or level, understands how their individual development and contributions align with our purpose of ‘improving today for a better tomorrow’. Each role and value has an alignment to set proficiency levels and expectations. This role holder is expected to:
- Leading: Acts as a role model, shaping the learning agenda, and influencing change.
- Agile: Anticipates learning needs, adjusts quickly to changing operational contexts.
- Nurturing: Supports the development of others through coaching and structured development plans.
- Engaging: Inspires and motivates learners, builds trust and credibility.
- Safe & Secure: Ensures all learning is aligned to safety and compliance standards.
Your Contribution to the company
- Strive to be always positive and constructive.
- Adhere to all company policies.
- Straight talking about the facts of the situation – open discussions are the best way to find solutions.
- Help others through communicating clearly.
- Deliver on commitments.
- Ensure that any ideas that may enhance the productivity or systems of the company are brought to the attention of Senior Management, or your colleagues.
- Deliver our Company Values understanding that by working together in unity we are ‘Stronger Together’.
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
At Lanes Group, we are dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and empowered. We believe that our differences make us stronger and are committed to providing equal opportunities for all employees. We welcome and encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds, including those from underrepresented groups. Join us in our commitment to creating a more inclusive and diverse world.
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