Home/Ways of working
Ways of workingSome clients need a whole scheme delivered. Others need an engineer for a morning. Both are entirely reasonable, and neither should require you to buy a larger arrangement than the job warrants.
If you are not sure which of these suits your situation, say so when you get in touch. Working that out is part of the initial conversation, and it does not cost anything.
| Arrangement | How it works | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Most commonFixed price | Scope and price both agreed in writing. The figure does not move unless you ask for something outside that scope, which is quoted separately first. | A Section 278 design taken through technical approval, where the work can be established at the outset. |
| FlexibleDay or half-day rate | An agreed rate for time spent, recorded and reported so you can see where it went. | Project management, site attendance and schemes whose shape is still emerging. |
| From one hourBy the hour | No minimum beyond a single hour. Sometimes an hour of the right expertise is all that is needed. | A second opinion, a planning condition to interpret, or one technical question answered properly. |
| OngoingAgreed days each month | A set number of days a month across whichever projects need them, giving you senior capacity without a permanent appointment. | Consultancies and developers running several schemes, or covering a gap in their own team. |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
Clients are sometimes reluctant to ask for a small amount of help, on the assumption it will not be worth anyone's while. It generally is, and these are all things regularly asked for:
Attending a meeting with a highway authority on your behalf is one of the more valuable short engagements. Technical questions get answered on the spot by someone who knows the standards, rather than taken away and returned a fortnight later.
It also changes the tenor of the conversation. Authority officers are engineers, and discussions between engineers tend to be shorter and more productive.
Short engagements are usually arranged within a few days. If it is genuinely urgent, call rather than email and I will tell you honestly whether I can help in the time available.
Not a criticism of larger practices. They exist for good reasons, and for some schemes they are the right answer. But the differences are real and worth understanding before you choose.
The engineer you speak to first is the one who draws the scheme, writes the submission and sits opposite the authority. Nothing is relayed through an account manager, and you are not handed to a different engineer half way through because someone was reassigned.
An independent has no offices, no layers of management and no business development function to recover through charge-out rates. What you pay for is the engineering and the experience behind it, which is why rates sit well below those of a large consultancy.
An engagement can be an hour, a scheme, or an ongoing arrangement, and it can change as your needs do. There is no minimum contract and no expectation that a small piece of work becomes a larger one.
Some schemes are large enough, or move fast enough, to warrant a full team behind them. Where that is the case I will tell you at the outset and point you towards the right sort of practice, rather than take the work on and let you discover it later.
Knowing which schemes suit this arrangement, and which do not, is part of what you are appointing.
Rates are not published here, because a sensible figure depends on what is actually involved. What is fixed is the process for getting to one.
You describe the situation and send whatever you have: a site plan, a planning decision, a drawing, or simply an explanation. There is no charge for this and no obligation attached to it.
I tell you what the work genuinely requires, including where I think something is unnecessary. If you do not need what you thought you needed, that is worth knowing before you pay for it.
Scope, deliverables, price and basis of charge, set out plainly enough that you can compare it against anyone else's. Assumptions and exclusions are stated rather than buried.
Nothing begins until the proposal is accepted. If the scope changes during the work, the cost implication is agreed before that change is carried out, not presented afterwards.
Yes. Professional Indemnity cover of £2 million and Public Liability cover of £5 million are in place. A copy of the certificate is provided on request, and is often something your own client or funder will want to see.
Yes, and a good deal of work is arranged that way. Consultancies and developers regularly bring me in as additional senior capacity, attending their internal meetings, working to their templates and standards, and representing the scheme as part of their team.
It depends on what is already committed, and I would rather tell you a realistic date than an optimistic one. Short engagements can usually be accommodated within a few days. For a full scheme, get in touch early, because availability is the constraint far more often than anything else.
Then we discuss it at the point it becomes apparent. Either the scope is varied and agreed in writing, or, if it has grown beyond what one engineer should sensibly take on, I will tell you that plainly. Neither is a conversation worth avoiding.
Yes, and the majority of my work is commissioned at locations around the UK. Design, correspondence with authorities and project management are handled remotely as standard, and delivered successfully that way, so where you are is rarely the deciding factor.
For the parts of a scheme that need attendance in person, such as site visits, surveying or meetings at the authority's offices, I cover sites in Kent. Two decades working in and around Kent authorities also means unusually detailed knowledge of local requirements in the South East.
You receive full use of everything produced for your scheme, in both native and published formats where that is appropriate. This is confirmed in writing as part of the proposal rather than left to be discovered later.
Describe the situation and I will suggest the one that makes sense, including telling you if the answer is that you do not need me yet.