10 Quantity Surveying Tips to Save Time and Money in 2025

Quantity surveying is one of those professions where experience counts for everything. The difference between a junior QS and a seasoned professional isn't just technical knowledge—it's the shortcuts, systems, and hard-won lessons that come from years of measuring drawings, pricing projects, and dealing with the inevitable surprises that every construction job throws up.

Whether you're a newly qualified quantity surveyor finding your feet or an experienced professional looking to work smarter, these ten tips will help you save time, reduce errors, and deliver better value to your clients.

1. Build a Library of Unit Rates

One of the most time-consuming parts of quantity surveying is pricing. Every time you start a new project, you're hunting for unit rates—how much per square metre for blockwork, how much per linear metre for drainage, how much per item for windows. It's tedious, and it's repetitive.

The solution is to build your own library of unit rates based on real project data. After each job, record the actual costs you achieved. Over time, you'll build a database of reliable rates that reflect your local market, your preferred suppliers, and your typical project types.

2. Standardise Your Take-Off Sheets

Consistency is your friend in quantity surveying. If you use a different format for every take-off, you're wasting time and increasing the risk of errors. Standardising your take-off sheets makes the process faster, easier to check, and simpler to hand over to colleagues.

A good take-off sheet should have a clear structure. Start with a description of the item you're measuring. Include columns for dimensions—length, width, height, or whatever's relevant. Add a column for the calculated quantity. Include a notes column for any assumptions or clarifications.

3. Check Your Work (Twice)

Mistakes happen. You miss a wall, double-count a floor area, or transpose a number in your spreadsheet. The problem is that a small error in your take-off can become a big error in your estimate, and a big error in your estimate can cost thousands of pounds.

The best defence is to check your work. Not a quick glance—a proper, methodical check. Go through your take-off line by line. Compare it against the drawings. Make sure your dimensions make sense.

4. Use Technology to Your Advantage

Quantity surveying has traditionally been a manual, paper-based profession. Scale rules, dimension paper, calculators, and price books were the tools of the trade. But technology is changing the game, and if you're not using it, you're working harder than you need to.

Digital take-off software can read PDF or CAD drawings and let you measure on screen. It's faster than a scale rule, more accurate, and you can save your work and come back to it later. Many packages also calculate areas and volumes automatically, reducing the risk of arithmetic errors.

5. Stay on Top of Material Prices

Material prices are one of the biggest variables in construction cost estimating. Timber, steel, concrete, and fuel-dependent products can swing by 10-20% in a matter of months. If you're using outdated pricing data, your estimates will be wrong.

The traditional approach is to use published price books, but these are often out of date by the time they're printed. A better approach is to build relationships with suppliers and get regular price updates.

6. Don't Forget the Prelims

Preliminaries—or prelims—are the indirect costs of running a construction project. They include site setup, welfare facilities, scaffolding, plant hire, site management, and insurance. They're easy to overlook, but they can account for 10-15% of the total project cost.

A common mistake is to focus all your attention on the direct costs—materials and labour for the actual building work—and then add a generic percentage for prelims at the end. This is lazy and often inaccurate.

7. Communicate Clearly with Clients

Quantity surveyors are technical professionals, but you're also advisors. Your job isn't just to produce numbers—it's to help clients understand what those numbers mean and make informed decisions.

Clear communication starts with your estimates. Don't just hand over a spreadsheet full of figures. Provide a summary that explains the key costs, the assumptions you've made, and any risks or uncertainties.

8. Learn from Every Project

Every construction project is a learning opportunity. Things go wrong, things cost more than expected, and things take longer than planned. The question is whether you learn from those experiences or just move on to the next job.

After each project, take time to review what happened. Compare your estimate to the actual costs. Where were you accurate? Where were you off? What caused the discrepancies?

9. Manage Your Time Effectively

Quantity surveying can be intense. You're juggling multiple projects, dealing with tight deadlines, and trying to produce accurate work under pressure. Time management isn't just a nice-to-have—it's essential.

One of the best time management techniques is to batch similar tasks. Instead of switching between take-offs, pricing, and admin throughout the day, block out time for each activity.

10. Invest in Your Professional Development

Construction is constantly evolving. New materials, new methods, new regulations, new technologies—if you're not keeping up, you're falling behind.

Professional development doesn't have to mean expensive courses or formal qualifications. It can be as simple as reading industry publications, attending webinars, or joining professional networks.

Conclusion

Quantity surveying is a demanding profession, but it's also a rewarding one. You play a critical role in making construction projects viable, keeping costs under control, and helping clients achieve their goals. The better you are at your job, the more value you deliver.

These ten tips won't make you an expert overnight, but they will make you more efficient, more accurate, and more effective. Do those things consistently, and you'll not only save time and money—you'll build a reputation as a quantity surveyor who delivers results.