S6E137: Is Quantity Surveying a Dying profession? & Alliance Contracts with Brendan Robinson

In this week’s pod, we welcomed Brendan Robinson to discuss whether Quantity Surveying is a dying profession. We also discussed Alliance Contracts.Brendan is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and Experienced Commercial Construction Professional. Brendan has worked for both Client and Main Contractor organisations for around 20 years. He recently joined a Construction Consultancy and specialises in Post Contract but has also had some experience in the Pre-Contract Stages of Construction Contracts. He has generally focused on Infrastructure Projects and specifically rail related projects over the last 15 years.He studied in and is originally from Cape Town, South Africa. He is a graduate of the Construction Law and Dispute Resolution Masters Programme at Kings College and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.He supports and works with tertiary education providers, most recently Universities, mentoring across Quantity Surveying and Contract Law courses and apprenticeships. He is passionate about Quantity Surveying and feels privileged to have supported and sponsored the Quantity Surveying Apprenticeship at Transport for London for around 5 years - 5 Cohorts and around 72 Apprentices on the programme. The main topics we discussed on the podcast were as follows:

• Quantity Surveyors are primarily focused on the cost and contractual side of contracts projects
• NEC has the most well known form of Alliance Contract. It is a relatively modern concept where all parties have a shared goal. It seeks to align goals between partners
• An Alliance contract generally sets out how to behave with other parties during the set-up phase
• The main changes over the last 20 years are around technological improvements in communication between clients / contractors
• The level of record keeping has also improved in the last decade due to technology. Turnstiles and gates allow projects the monitor the volume of staff on site. This has led to it being a more paperwork heavy role
• Microsoft Excel is a helpful tool for QS’ but it is not essential. You cannot negotiate a variation on Excel!
• Delay damages are rarely successful on construction projects despite the effort in pursuing them

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