Armed Forces Pathway - Senior Associate Estimator

Location/s: Newcastle, Glasgow, Altrincham, York, Brighton, Croydon; UK 
Recruiter contact: Alice Roostan

Mott MacDonald is a global engineering, management, and development consultancy with over 20,000 employees across more than 50 countries and 140+ offices. 

We work across incredible global industries, delivering exciting work that is defining our future and making an important societal impact in the communities we serve. Our people power our performance – we succeed when they do. With countless opportunities to collaborate, learn, and grow, the possibilities for excellence are as varied as every individual. 

Whether you want to grow as a subject matter expert or broaden your experience with roles across our international community, you’re surrounded by global specialists who want to combine their expertise and champion you to be your best. As a proudly employee-owned business, we benefit our clients, our communities, and each other, investing in creating the right space for everyone to feel empowered, included, and valued. Whatever your ambition, Mott MacDonald is where people come to be brilliant.

About the Armed Forces Pathway
Mott MacDonald’s Armed Forces Pathway represents our commitment to recruiting, transitioning, developing, and supporting the armed forces community within our organisation. The Pathway is designed to support military personnel transitioning into civilian careers. It provides support and resources to help individuals develop relevant skills, and successfully integrate into roles outside of the military. Our programme offers training, mentorship, and network opportunities, tailored to the unique experiences and skills of military personnel.

Duration: 12 months 

Location: Newcastle, Glasgow, Altrincham, York, Brighton, Croydon 

Support: You’ll be paired with a supportive buddy from our Mott MacDonald Forces community.

About the business unit  
The advisory and programme delivery division delivers services to projects ranging in scale and complexity from £million’s to £20bn, through the technical disciplines of programme management, project management, project controls, scheduling, cost management, estimating, infrastructure finance, management consulting, digital consulting, education and healthcare management.

Our Specialist Advisory portfolio is primarily a UK based business delivering project, programme and commercial management services to infrastructure clients both in the UK and overseas. Our work stretches across the entire project lifecycle, from pre-concept cost estimating and benchmarking to post contract Quantity Surveying services and commercial assurance.

For project and programme management we deliver capital projects on behalf of our clients, both internal and external that range from several hundred thousand pounds in value to major projects and programmes worth over £10billion.  Additionally, we are the home of the cost intelligence service, a specialist team of data analysts and economists who provide expert advice across all sectors on inflation and indexation.

Overview of the role
Cost estimation in project management is the process of predicting the financial and other resources needed to complete a project. It involves calculating the costs associated with labour, materials, equipment, and other necessary elements to determine a project's budget. Accurate cost estimation is crucial for effective project planning, control, and decision-making, as it helps ensure projects stay within budget constraints and facilitates informed resource allocation.

In this role you will hold responsibility for cost estimate development through all stages of project and programme lifecycles, from concept stage through to delivery and handover.

Key responsibilities and duties include: 

• Undertake estimates using various techniques including first principal bottom-up, and parametric top-down methods
• Collaborate with stakeholders to identify, capture, and record the scope of the estimating activities
• Establish Work Breakdown and Cost Breakdown
• Structures ensuring all scope elements captured and recorded using industry standard methods of measurement
• Ensure all elements of the ‘cost stack’ including, escalation, land and property, administration, direct costs, indirect costs, and temporary works are considered in the estimate
• Support the identification of risk and opportunities and produce estimates for pre-mitigation and post-mitigation cost impacts
• Develop and support the calculation of contingency, as a holistic view of risk, opportunity and estimating uncertainty within a project team environment
• Challenge sustainability and consider embodied and operational carbon within the proposed solution
• Produce basis of estimate reports to effectively communicate all estimating assumptions, dependencies, and exclusions to stakeholders and end users
• Implement estimating best practice to ensure quality and governance is maintained and deliver estimating outputs to an exceptional level of technical competence within agreed timescales
• Ensure that leadership review, assurance and sign-off is completed for all estimates
• Have a clear understanding of project finances and provide support to the project team in developing project financial models

Candidate specification
Essential:

• Former Serving Member of the UK Armed Forces. No minimum or maximum rank or length of Service, however strong candidates will demonstrate success in appointments and promotions within the Armed Forces
• Demonstrate the potential to embrace industry-wide infrastructure cost estimating roles, with a wider understanding of the industries in which Mott MacDonald are employed
• Demonstrate the potential for technical proficiency, including application of cost estimating software to complement existing skills in MS Excel, MS Office Suite including Word and PowerPoint
• Strong communication skills both written and verbal, with ability to articulate cost estimating data and information to wide variety of stakeholders
• Willingness to undertake specific training to enable this candidate to deliver Cost Estimating to a wide variety of potential customers, with a commitment to continuous learning and professional development

Please be advised that offers for this role are conditional upon obtaining the appropriate level of Security Clearance.

**Closing date for appliations is midnight on Sunday 19th October**

UK Immigration

Mott MacDonald Ltd. are not currently offering sponsorship to candidates under the Skilled Worker visa route in the UK. This decision is as a consequence of the changes made to the Skilled Worker route by the UK Government in April 2024. We continue to welcome applications from candidates who are eligible for alternative immigration routes in the UK, that do not require sponsorship as a Skilled Worker now or in future.

Agile working  

At Mott MacDonald, we believe it makes business sense for you and your manager to choose how you can work most effectively to meet your client, team, and personal commitments. We offer a hybrid working policy that embraces your well-being, flexibility, and trust.

Equality, diversity, and inclusion 

We put equality, diversity, and inclusion at the heart of our business, seeking to promote fair employment procedures and practices to ensure equal opportunities for all. We encourage individual expression in our workplace and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels they can contribute.

Accessibility

We want you to perform your best at every stage in the recruitment process. If you are disabled or need any support to enable you to apply or attend an interview, please contact us at reasonable.adjustments@mottmac.com and we will talk to you about how we can support you.

We offer some fantastic benefits including:

Health and wellbeing

• Private medical insurance for all UK colleagues.
• Health cash plan to support you with every day health costs and treatments.
• Access to Peppy, providing free support from menopause experts for all UK colleagues.
• A variety of wellbeing support is available through our comprehensive wellbeing program, including access for you and your family.
• Ability to flex your salary to opt into a wide range of health benefits, many of which can be extended to your family too.

Financial wellbeing

• We match employee pension contributions between 4.5% and 7%.
• Life assurance equal up to 4 x your basic salary, with an option to increase the level of cover to 6 x your salary.
• Our income protection scheme provides a financial benefit, as well as absence and return to work support due to long-term illness or injury.
• Flexible benefits, including increased life assurance cover, critical illness insurance, payroll saving and will writing.
• As an independently owned business we share the financial success of the business with all our colleagues in various ways including annual bonus schemes.

Lifestyle

• A minimum of 33-35 days holiday each year, inclusive of public holidays and dependent on level, with the ability to buy or sell leave through our flexible benefits programme.
• Holiday entitlement increased to a minimum of 35 days after 5 years’ service.
• Variety of employee saving schemes and discounts from high-street retailers.

 Enhanced family and carers leave

• Enhanced family leave policies, including 26 weeks paid maternity and adoption leave, and two weeks paid paternity/partner leave.
• Our shared parental leave matches maternity leave meaning we pay up to 24 weeks at full pay.
• Up to five additional days leave are provided for those with significant caring responsibilities, two of which are paid.

Learning and development

• Primary annual professional institution subscription.
• A broad range of opportunities to enhance both technical and soft skills through mentoring, formal training, and self-development options.

Networks, communities, and social outcomes

• Join a wide range of groups including our Advanced Employee Networks which support our LGBTQ+, gender, race and ethnicity, disability, and parents/carers communities.
• Make a difference within our communities through our social outcomes.

Apply now, or for more information about our application process, click here.