Employer's Agent

What is an employer's agent in design and build?

On a design and build contract the contractor controls the design — which is exactly why the employer needs a professional in their corner. The employer's agent acts for the employer under a JCT Design and Build contract, performing the administrative and certification functions the contract assigns and protecting the employer's interests from brief to final account. The role is defined in RICS's own practice standards, and panel appointments follow them.

What your employer's agent does

• Employer's requirements — drafting the document that defines what the contractor must deliver; the single biggest determinant of whether you get the building you expected.
• Contractor selection — tendering, analysing contractors' proposals against the requirements, and reporting before you commit.
• Contract administration — valuations, payment notices, change control on employer variations, extensions of time and programme monitoring.
• Quality and completion — inspections during the works, practical completion certification, defects management through rectification, and final account agreement.

Employer's agent, contract administrator or project manager?

The titles get used interchangeably; the roles are not. A contract administrator operates traditional contracts where the employer's team designs and the contractor builds — and must certify impartially between the parties. An employer's agent exists only in design and build: the contract vests design in the contractor, and the agent acts on the employer's behalf in administering it — reviewing the contractor's design as it develops, running the payment machinery and certifying completion. A project manager is the wider, whole-project role that can sit above either. The procurement route decides which you need; if the route itself is still an open question, that is worth a conversation before anything is signed.

Employer's requirements vs contractor's proposals

Design and build lives or dies on two documents. The employer's requirements say what you want; the contractor's proposals say what the contractor intends to provide — and where the two quietly diverge, the divergence almost always favours the party who wrote it. The panel's employer's agents draft requirements tight enough to price against — performance specifications, quality benchmarks, design-submission procedures, warranty requirements — and then check the contractor's proposals line by line before contract, because after signature every unnoticed gap becomes a change you pay for. The same discipline continues during the works as “value engineering” proposals arrive: each one assessed for what it actually removes, not just what it saves.

Payment and change control under the Construction Act

Commercial design and build contracts sit under the statutory payment regime of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (as amended): payment notices and pay less notices with hard deadlines, where a missed notice can oblige the employer to pay the sum applied for regardless of the work actually done. The employer's agent runs this machinery so the deadlines are met — applications reviewed against progress on site, notices issued on time, and change instructions priced and recorded before the work happens rather than reconstructed at final account.

Common failure points on design and build — and how the role prevents them

The recurring problems are predictable: employer's requirements written as a wish list rather than a specification; contractor's proposals accepted unread; design submissions waved through without review, so quality is set by the cheapest compliant product; payment notices missed; and practical completion certified with incomplete documentation, leaving warranties and manuals to be chased for a year. Each has the same cure — an agent doing the unglamorous administration on time. That is the service.

Who instructs the panel

Developers, housing associations, businesses commissioning their own premises, and private clients on larger residential schemes. On funded projects the employer's agent works alongside — and the panel can provide — the development monitoring surveyor the lender requires. Where the employer prefers a traditional procurement route instead, our contract administration and project management services cover it. And if a design and build scheme has already gone wrong — defects, delay or a contested final account — the panel's construction expert witnesses provide CPR Part 35 evidence.

Fees and instruction

Appointments are made before the building contract is signed — ideally at brief stage — on fixed or percentage fees agreed up front. Tell us the scheme, programme and funding structure and we will propose a scope.

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