Jackwolf Group welcomed work experience student Harrison to its offices from 29th June to 3rd July 2026 for a structured five-day placement built around a single question: what actually happens between an opportunity arriving and a project being delivered on site?
Rather than a week of passive observation, the programme was designed to follow a tender and live project from start to finish. Through estimating and pricing, into the commercial handover, and on to the day-to-day management of a live job by a quantity surveyor.
A department-by-department view
Harrison began with a full induction alongside Business Development Coordinator, covering office safety, confidentiality and the practicalities of the working week. He then worked through the company organogram with our Business Development Coordinator, meeting each department in turn (estimating and preconstruction, quantity surveying and commercial, operations, finance, and business development), and sitting with a member of each team to understand how work flows between them.
Each department came with a deliberately simple prompt: what would go wrong if this team didn't exist? It is a question that gets to the heart of how a contractor actually functions.
Estimating and preconstruction
Time with our estimating team introduced Harrison to the preconstruction lifecycle: where work comes from, including frameworks, invitations to tender and public procurement portals, and the bid / no-bid decision that determines why a business does not chase every opportunity.
He worked through how a tender is set up and, importantly, how a price is built, measuring quantities, issuing enquiries to subcontractors and suppliers, and consolidating the return into a submitted price. As part of this he read real project drawings, identifying components and services and cross-referencing them against the specification. It is a foundational skill, and one that carries straight through from estimating into commercial delivery.
Live commercial delivery
Midweek, Harrison moved across to our commercial team to shadow our trainee Quantity Surveyor on live tasks. Over two days he covered the handover from estimating to delivery.
Understanding was tested throughout rather than assumed. Harrison worked through a series of quantity surveying worksheets set at levels of difficulty, beginning with straightforward exercises on terminology and departmental roles and building towards more demanding tasks on measurement, valuation and the pricing of variations. Each was completed and reviewed alongside the relevant team member, so that a wrong answer became a conversation rather than a mark.
On Friday he presented back to the team, talking through the full journey of a project from opportunity to site in his own words, before a career’s discussion covering routes into quantity surveying and the subject and qualification choices that support them.
Why we do this
"Opening up access to careers in the built environment is a core part of how Jackwolf Group approaches social value. Most young people never hear that quantity surveying, estimating or building services engineering are options at all. They are well-paid, secure careers with clear routes in, including apprenticeships but only if someone shows you the door exists. Structured placements are the most direct way we can do that. " Said Glenna Bumatay, Business Development Coordinator.
