The Assistant QS Field Guide: Your First Few Years
Everything your degree didn't cover. From subcontract order to final account, written by people who've done the job. A practical guide for AQSs and graduate QSs in their first few years at a UK main contractor or subcontractor.
- What a QS actually does: the four things you spend most of your time on
- How money flows through the payment chain and where the deadlines that cost you most sit
- The documents you will live in and how to use them correctly under time pressure
- JCT and NEC in plain English: the clauses that govern your day job, without the fear
- Variations: why juniors lose margin here, and the habits that stop it
- CVR basics: how your inputs affect the number your director cares about most
Graduate QS Field Guide
The Assistant QS Field Guide
What This Is
The map nobody draws for you in your first few years
Your degree covered NRM2, measurement principles and JCT theory. What it probably didn't cover is how to get through a Monday morning with fourteen subcontractor applications on your desk, a variation dispute from last month still unresolved, and a CVR meeting at eleven that you're supposed to have numbers ready for.
The gap between what you were taught and what the day job requires isn't about intelligence or technical ability. It's about context: the mental framework that experienced QSs carry in their heads and that nobody writes down, because by the time you've been doing this for five years you've forgotten what it was like not to know it.
This guide is that map. Written for the day job, not the exam.
What's Covered
Eight chapters covering the commercial disciplines every AQS needs in year one:
What a QS Actually Does
The four things you spend most of your time on
The Commercial Cycle, Start to Finish
From subcontract order to final account
The Documents You Will Live In
What they are and how to use them correctly
Contracts Without the Fear
JCT and NEC: the clauses that govern your day job
The Valuation and Payment Cycle
How money moves and which deadlines can cost you
Variations: the Thing Juniors Get Wrong
Where margin leaks and how to stop it
CVR Basics
What the document is and how your inputs affect it
How Not to Look Like a Rookie
Ten habits that separate year-one AQSs from year-two ones
"The QS is the person who knows whether the project is making money. Not the project manager, not the site manager, not the director sitting in the office reviewing a report. You are closest to the numbers, which means you are also responsible for their accuracy."
From the guide
Related Reading
From the StoneRise Blog
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The Platform
The Processes in This Guide, Built Into Your Workflow
StoneRise gives commercial teams the structured workflows, live variation registers and payment deadline tracking that make good commercial discipline systematic rather than manual.
Commercial Management
Subcontract orders, payment applications, variation registers and CVR inputs in one connected workflow.
Variation Management
Capture, instruct and value every change from the moment it arises, with a full audit trail.
CVR Software
Live cost-value reconciliation that updates as costs land, so the margin picture is always current.