Commercial Manager (Quantity Surveying)

ROLE PURPOSEThe Commercial Manager (Quantity Surveying) owns cost certainty across TDG’s development portfolio. The role combines hands-on quantity surveying with commercial and contractual management, taking a project from first-principles cost plan at feasibility, through tender and award, to agreed final account.This is a working commercial role, not a supervisory one. The postholder measures, prices, and interrogates cost personally rather than relying on consultants to do it and reporting the result upward. The purpose of the position is to give TDG an independent, informed commercial view of every project, held in-house.ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXTTDG is a Riyadh-based real estate developer operating across the residential, commercial, industrial, and hospitality sectors. The company runs a deliberately lean structure, which means individual roles carry genuine breadth and the postholder will be exposed to the full development lifecycle rather than a single stage of it.The role sits within the Delivery function and reports to the Chief Delivery Officer. It works closely with Development on feasibility and appraisal inputs, and with Finance on cashflow, accruals, and payment.KEY RESPONSIBILITIESCOST PLANNING AND ESTIMATING•   Prepare and maintain cost plans at concept, scheme, and detailed design stages, developing the level of detail as the design matures.•   Benchmark all cost plans against current KSA construction rates and recent tender returns, and evidence the source of every rate used.•   Provide construction cost, escalation, and contingency inputs into development appraisals and financial models, and challenge assumptions that are not supportable.•   Produce and maintain elemental cost breakdowns that allow value engineering to be assessed on a like-for-like basis.•   Undertake cost-impact assessments of design changes before they are committed, not after.MEASUREMENT AND TENDERING•   Prepare, review, and interrogate bills of quantities. Check consultant-prepared quantities rather than accept them.•   Prepare tender documentation, including pricing schedules, preliminaries, and the commercial sections of the instructions to tenderers.•   Manage the tender process end to end: enquiry issue, mid-tender queries, receipt, and confidentiality of returns.•   Carry out bid levelling and commercial adjudication, normalising returns for scope, exclusions, qualifications, and programme.•   Prepare tender reports with a clear recommendation, the basis for it, and the residual commercial risks in the recommended bid.PROCUREMENT SUPPORT•   Contribute to procurement strategy, including work packaging, contract form selection, and the balance of risk transfer against price.•   Maintain and develop the contractor and subcontractor database, including prequalification, capacity, and performance history.•   Advise on the commercial consequences of the chosen contract form before it is executed, particularly on variation, delay, and payment mechanisms.CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION AND POST-CONTRACT QUANTITY SURVEYING•   Administer construction contracts under FIDIC and bespoke Saudi forms, including the correct and timely issue of notices.•   Assess monthly applications for payment, carry out site measurement where required, and certify payment on the evidenced value of work properly executed.•   Price, assess, and negotiate variations, maintaining a full audit trail from instruction through valuation to agreement.•   Assess extension of time and loss and expense claims, prepare TDG’s response, and defend the company’s position with contemporaneous records.•   Manage the final account process to agreement and closure, including release of retention and resolution of outstanding claims.•   Maintain the commercial record for each project so that TDG’s position is defensible if a dispute arises.COST CONTROL AND REPORTING•   Produce a monthly commercial report for each project covering approved budget, committed spend, actual cost, anticipated final cost, and forecast variance.•   Maintain the change control register, the risk register, and the contingency drawdown record, with clear reasons for every movement.•   Prepare cost-to-complete assessments and cashflow forecasts, and reconcile them with Finance.•   Flag adverse cost movement early and with a proposed mitigation, rather than reporting it once it has crystallised.CONSULTANT AND VENDOR COMMERCIAL MANAGEMENT•   Negotiate consultant and contractor fees and terms, and prepare the commercial summary supporting each appointment.•   Prepare purchase orders in accordance with the TDG Procurement Policy, and validate invoices against contracted deliverables before release for payment.•   Within the delivery team, be aware of consultant performance against scope and deliverables.•   In cooperation with the delivery team manage the commercial consequences of under-delivery.•   Ensure correct treatment of VAT and withholding tax on construction and consultancy invoices, in coordination with Finance.GOVERNANCE AND COMPLIANCE•   Operate strictly within the TDG Delegation of Authority and Procurement Policy. Recommend, and prepare the paper. Approval sits with the delegated authority.•   Prepare commercial submissions for management and, where required, for the Board Investment Committee.•   Ensure all commercial records are filed in accordance with TDG’s document architecture and are complete, current, and auditable.•   Comply with the Conflict of Interest Policy and the Code of Conduct in all dealings with contractors, consultants, and suppliers.AUTHORITY AND LIMITSThe postholder holds recommendation authority, not award authority. Tender recommendations, fee agreements, variation valuations, and final account settlements are prepared and recommended by the postholder and approved in accordance with the Delegation of Authority.Because the same person prices variations, negotiates fees, and prepares award recommendations, the Delegation of Authority thresholds are the operative control on this role. Candidates should understand and accept this before applying.KEY INTERFACESINTERNAL: •   Chief Delivery Officer, line management, commercial strategy, and escalation.•   Chief Development Officer and the development team, on appraisal inputs and feasibility cost.•   Finance, on cashflow, accruals, payment runs, and tax treatment.•   Project and design managers, on scope definition and change control.EXTERNAL: •   Contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers, on valuation, variation, and claims.•   Cost consultants and project management consultants, where appointed.•   Design consultants, on the cost consequences of design development.PERFORMANCE MEASURES•   Outturn cost against approved budget, measured at final account across the portfolio.•   Accuracy of the anticipated final cost forecast, measured against outturn.•   Tender savings achieved against pre-tender estimate, balanced against any transfer of risk back to TDG.•   Timeliness and completeness of the monthly commercial report.•   Value of claims successfully defended or reduced through contemporaneous record-keeping.•   Time taken from practical completion to agreed final account.QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCEESSENTIAL•   Bachelor’s degree in quantity surveying, construction management, or civil engineering.•   Six to ten years of post-graduation experience in a quantity surveying or commercial role.•   Demonstrable experience on projects delivered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.•   Full-cycle experience: pre-contract cost planning and tendering, and post-contract valuation, variation, and final account.•   Working knowledge of FIDIC forms and of Saudi construction contracting practice.•   Current, evidenced awareness of Riyadh construction rates and subcontract market capacity.•   Understanding of ZATCA VAT treatment on construction and consultancy invoices.•   Excellent written English. Reporting is in English.DESIRABLE•   MRICS, or working towards chartered status with a credible timeline.•   Experience split between contractor and consultant or client side. Developer-side exposure is a clear advantage.•   Residential, mixed-use, industrial and logistics experience are all valued as the business operates in multiple asset classes.•   Arabic language capability, written and spoken.•   Experience of claims and dispute resolution beyond routine variation assessment.•   Exposure to development appraisal and financial modelling.TECHNICAL SKILLS•   Measurement and cost management software: CostX, Candy, Cubicost, or equivalent.•   Advanced Excel, including the ability to build and audit a cost model without external help.•   Aconex or a comparable common data environment.•   Microsoft 365, including SharePoint-based document control.•   Ability to read and interrogate drawings and specifications across all disciplines.COMPETENCIES AND BEHAVIOURS•   Precise. Numbers are checked before they are reported, and the source of every figure is known.•   Commercially firm without being adversarial. The objective is a defensible position and a working relationship.•   Willing to give an honest answer to a senior stakeholder, including when the answer is unwelcome.•   Organised and disciplined about records to support a solid claim management approach. •   Comfortable operating with autonomy in a lean structure, and comfortable asking when something falls outside the postholder’s expertise.•   Aligned to TDG’s standard of disciplined planning, governance, and long-term partnership.