Build Teams That Hold The Programme Together

Main contractor build programmes live and die on three things: programme, margin and quality — and recruitment touches all three whether a business plans for it or not. A site manager appointed without genuine NEC or JCT contract exposure will make decisions that look reasonable in isolation but erode programme certainty over months. A quantity surveyor who doesn’t understand how to protect value on a fluctuating supply chain will find margin eroding quietly, valuation by valuation.

We recruit for the pressure points, not just the vacancy. Every main contractor role we fill is assessed against the specific contract form, project value and programme stage it sits within — a site manager for a fast-track fit-out needs a different profile to one running a multi-phase new-build. Our consultants have direct exposure to both environments and shortlist accordingly.

Speed without compromise. We understand that an unfilled site role costs money every day it sits open. Our process is built to move quickly — often producing a shortlist within 72 hours — without skipping the compliance and reference checks that protect you from a costly bad hire further down the line.

Whether you’re resourcing a single critical vacancy or building a full site team for a new project mobilisation, we bring the same rigour: candidates who are qualified, available, and genuinely suited to the demands of your specific programme.

Where Hiring Bottlenecks Actually Happen

Main contractor recruitment rarely fails at the sourcing stage — it fails at the handover between what a project actually needs and what gets written into a job spec. A site manager brief that lists years of experience but says nothing about contract form, subcontractor package count or the client’s reporting expectations will attract applicants, but not necessarily the right ones. We see this most acutely at two points in a project’s life.

Pre-construction mobilisation is where the cost of a wrong hire is highest and least visible. A design manager or planner brought in during pre-con sets the assumptions an entire delivery team will work from for the next 18 to 36 months. Get this wrong and the consequences don’t show up until the project is live and it’s too late to unwind cheaply. We treat pre-con roles as our most rigorously vetted, because there’s no live site yet to expose a poor fit quickly.

Live-site continuity is the second pressure point. Losing a site manager or QS mid-programme is disruptive in a way that losing the same role pre-start isn’t — there’s institutional knowledge, subcontractor relationships and client trust bound up in the incumbent that a replacement has to rebuild fast. Our approach to live-site vacancies weights handover quality and speed-to-productivity as heavily as technical fit.

What a Well-Briefed Role Looks Like

The main contractor clients who get the fastest, most accurate shortlists from us are the ones who brief beyond the job title. A strong brief tells us the contract form (JCT Design & Build, NEC3/4 Option A through F), the current programme stage, the subcontractor package count and complexity, and — critically — what “good” looked like in the last person who held the role, or what went wrong if it’s a replacement hire. This isn’t paperwork for its own sake: a site manager who thrives running a straightforward JCT residential scheme may struggle on a complex NEC infrastructure-adjacent build with multiple early warning notices in flight, and vice versa. Matching people to the right kind of pressure, not just the right job title, is what separates a placement that lasts from one that doesn’t.

We also ask clients to be honest about programme risk at the point of brief. A role on a scheme that’s already behind programme needs a different kind of candidate — someone who can absorb pressure and communicate bad news early — than a role on a scheme mobilising cleanly from day one. Candidates who thrive in a recovery environment aren’t always the same people who thrive building steady-state momentum, and pretending otherwise at brief stage is one of the most common causes of an early exit.

How quickly can you provide a shortlist for a main contractor role?

For most site management, QS and planning roles we can turn around an initial shortlist within 72 hours of a full brief, drawing on our active network of pre-vetted professionals rather than starting a cold search. More senior or highly specialist roles — a design manager for a complex mixed-use scheme, for example — may take longer to get right, and we’ll always tell you upfront if that’s the case rather than rushing a shortlist that doesn’t hold up.

Do you only place permanent staff, or contract and temporary roles too?

We resource all three. Main contractors typically need a mix of permanent site leadership, contract specialists for defined project phases (a planner for the pre-con period, for example) and temporary trades and labour to flex with programme demand. We staff all of these from the same vetted network, so continuity of quality doesn’t drop depending on contract type.

How do you vet candidates for specific contract forms like NEC or JCT?

During our Vetting stage we ask candidates directly about their exposure to the specific contract form and options relevant to your project — not just “have you used NEC” but which options, how they’ve handled early warning notices or compensation events, and what their role actually was in contract administration versus site delivery. This is checked against referencing, not just self-reported CV claims.

What happens if a placement doesn’t work out?

Our Aftercare stage means we stay engaged after placement, checking in during the first weeks on site rather than considering the job done once someone starts. If a placement genuinely isn’t working — which is rare when briefing and vetting have been done properly — we’ll work with you to resolve it quickly rather than leaving you to manage the fallout alone.