Pencil and Brick is hiring a design led estimator (private residential) to join its team in London.
Are you interested in forging a new exciting career as a design led estimator, and wanting to have an adventure with a principle driven, architect-led design and build home transformation company?
This role is suited to architecture trained candidates, engineers and surveyors, for a unique opportunity to see designs built, shape costs and be part of real construction decisions. This opportunity is open at our home renovation and extension design and build business Pencil and Brick Architects Ltd.
Particulars:
- job advert ID: J26.30
- first published: 261103
- salary: £30k – £40k, experience-appropriate
- working location: currently our Brick Lane office, 6 Links Yard, London, E1 5LX
- your location: only applicants living in London will be responded to
- contract type: PAYE Employment, full-time five days per week
- full-time hours: 40 Hours/week, Monday to Friday. Flexible with common hours 9am to 6pm
- probation period: six months
Employee benefits:
- 30 days leave inc BH
- loyalty/long service additional days off
- phone/tablet/bike business-use cost contributions
- four per cent employer pension contribution
- enhanced sick and compassionate leave
- deadline/start date: ASAP. Though we’ll wait for the right person. First come first served. We’ll remove this ad from all locations when the position is filled
Career path
This role will involve different specialism career paths in the build side of our business – this is a rare opportunity to have in-depth exposure to the construction and logistics of architectural projects.
Example career progression path:
- design led estimator
- department lead
- associate
- associate director
- director
- shareholding director
Who we are
We are a unique architect-led design and build company shaking up the tired traditional status quo. We are a RIBA Chartered Practice, and heavily involved in the Federation of Master Builders (FMB), represented on the London Board and the national Standards Committee.
We are people who not only improve people’s lives, we transform lives. We leave the world a better place than we found it. We are our Values. We are an architect-led design and build business who specialise in home transformation works predominantly for the north and east London private residential market.
Our designs and our builds are award winning. We work from our office near Brick Lane, Shoreditch. We love refining, iterating, innovating and delivering magical homes for people to wake up in. We leave the world a better place than how we found it. We do a small amount of commercial development work too but focus on residential.
Our values
Read our group-written Values text here.
Integrity: we do what we say we’ll do – our words have power. And what we do works.
Impeccability: we put everything in it’s right place, so the end result feels effortless.
Trust: being worthy of trust means operating with integrity, we speak up and challenge when it works to do so.
Passion: we bring joy, curiosity and genuine care to every project
Teamwork: we champion collaboration, supporting each other to reach goals.
Ambition: we’re driven to improve sustainably, thoughtfully and boldly – raising the bar and helping others do the same.
The opportunity
You would join us to be a build professional with architectural background, with a strong focus in being a build estimator, and opportunities to be department lead for our private residential home transformation projects in London, and be a team member to pull the company forward in line with our Values. We are currently seven architectural/build professional staff in the practice and two others, and are looking for a new team member to drive and enable the construction project management efforts, with some elements of pricing, purchasing and managing logistics and costs. The role will include many speculative and construction site visits but mostly working from the office.
The role will regularly require the application of architectural skills. You would report to the Salvo, the build lead who is also project manager and senior architect, and accountable for the whole build department.
Why you’ll love it:
- you’ll gain experience bridging design and construction, a rare skill set in the UK market
- you’ll have the chance to shape projects early, influencing costs, procurement, and build processes
- you’ll expand your professional expertise in estimating, procurement, and construction logistics
- you’ll work in a small, supportive team where your input directly affects project outcomes
- the role offers a mix of office-based planning and hands-on site involvement to keep work dynamic and varied
- the role is NOT suited to candidates with no residential construction pricing experience
What are your responsibilities?
You will be required to carry out all reasonable estimating and construction-project-enabling duties within the build team, including tender pricing, presentation to clients, purchasing of any items that may be needed for the construction site, and some health and safety tasks. There is space to grow and have a long and fun career with us, accrue benefits and ultimately steer the business.
Initial responsibilities would be approx:
- 70 per cent estimating home extension/renovation projects, and assisting project management and project acquisition
- 30 per cent purchasing and logistics for the projects on site
Some day to day tasks would be
Detailed pricing:
- prepare early detailed pricing (EDP) to address the client’s budget and scope
- prepare detailed estimates for residential projects following stage 4 Technical Design and EDP
- reading buildings and drawings to establish thoughtful Bills of Quantities
- being able to verify quantities and reliable information on the packages provided
- finding construction issues that others haven’t spotted
- prepare a detailed list of Inclusions and Exclusions for the construction works for each estimate
- visualise/communicate a baseline scope of works with efficiency and clearly, being able to sketch and use the drawings provided
- establish ways to fit project costs to the client’s budget and provide creative value engineering options
Architectural:
- bring to bear on the build projects and pricing an architectural expertise for design, statutory regulation compliance, health and safety management, on-site aesthetic decision making (eg setting out, or product switching) and optioneering
Pricing and purchasing:
- begotiating: seeking good commercial trade deals, and being artfully stubborn to improve the project’s performance
- retrieve quotes from trusted subcontractors and review, flagging any relevant information to the project manager
Data:
- develop and refine a replicable template for costing to standardise the costing process
- project and pricing data management: being exceptional and creating and nurturing impeccable project spreadsheets, and contributing to the teams general housekeeping and systemisation of data. We are a data-driven business
- prepare occasional cost analysis to assess market trends and review company rates
Project management assistance:
- help the project managers to prepare Variations and explore options to resolve a specific cost query
- report to the manager to ensure workflow and deadlines are met
- belp the project managers of specific projects to purchase project related items
- coordinate site logistics with the dedicated team and make sure it is reflected in the pricing
- communicate with the accounting department to efficiently prepare payments applications
The Minimum requirements to be demonstrated:
- private residential estimating/pricing/quantity surveying experience. Burden to prove construction knowledge and pricing abilities is on the candidates applying
- willingness to learn, try, fail quickly and grow fast. Openly learn from mistakes and share findings and new solutions
- problem solver, not just a problem finder
- particularly good and clear communication skills – in such a way that you inspire others
- be proactive, someone who generates and shares knowledge, not someone reactive who sits waiting expectantly
- finds efficiencies and makes them repeatable for others
- be a good fit with our current teams : polite, passionate, intelligent, proactive
- be a good record keeper and error flagging
- be hardworking, honourable, and loyal to your team and company
- focus-orientated, not easily distracted when doing fast, repetitive, brain taxing pricing
- not afraid of the phone and to ask for discounts and special deals
- care about impeccability where it matters
- protects the company’s reputation as a priority
- work from our current studio, 6 Links Yard, London, E1 5LX, 9am – 6pm, 5 days a week, although we have a flexible working policy and a whole studio WFH policy currently working from home on Fridays
The preferable situation:
- mature beyond your years, and you excel in knowing yourself, you have a command over your unwanted habits and automatic behaviours
- understanding of architectural and structural drawings, in particular Building regulations packages for resi projects
- preference for candidates demonstrating quantity surveying, construction, architecture, engineering and other estimating related education and experience case studies
- MacOS fluent
- Google Drive fluent, especially Google Sheets or Excel
- attention to customer needs and requirements
- excellent time manager and organizational skills
- have a love of maths and spreadsheets
- has minimum notice period with any current employer or obligation
- preferable if you have less than 45 minutes commute by your preferred means.
The hiring process:
- you apply via the Monday.com Form only: https://forms.monday.com/forms/6cf5dfd7116bc24674a42b5dd4a0eede?r=use1
- we create a longlist and we email everyone
- longlist created: short videocall interviews
- shortlist created: request shortlist to fill out a psychometric questionnaire
- shortlist interviews: in-person interviews
- job offered, accepted (hopefully!) and all notified
As part of our commitment to building a collaborative and values-aligned team, shortlisted candidates will be asked to complete a 15 minute psychometric questionnaire before any first interview. By applying you are agreeing to do this.
How to apply:
- fill out Monday Form. Follow instructions impeccably. https://forms.monday.com/forms/6cf5dfd7116bc24674a42b5dd4a0eede?r=use1
- we will email you
- we plan to work fairly fast to fill this role. We’re not in a rush, but time matters
- only shortlisted candidates will have feedback from us
- as a way of respecting your precious time, we’ll keep longlisting questions simple and short and only ask you to invest more effort and time in this application if you’re longlisted or shortlisted
