Businesses looking to hire a civil engineer to project manage a development or contract need to produce a clear specification to outline the skills, experience, specialisms, and knowledge their appointed professional must possess.
Guru’s freelance network includes more than 13,000 civil engineers with expertise in structural design, engineering, construction, and geotechnical engineering sectors. Pinning down your requirements is a great help in narrowing down your shortlist.
Today, we’ve outlined what are skills expected from civil engineers and some of the key duties that you may wish to include in your job specification to attract the top civil project engineering talent.
When to Hire a Civil Project Engineer
Civil project engineers are primarily in charge of monitoring deliverables, ensuring any development or construction is completed on time, within budget, and adhering to all relevant regulations and legislative requirements.
Much depends on the stage of your project and whether you need a civil project engineer to consult on the initial design phase or supervise the commissioning of an approved design–you can hire civil project engineers to:
- Draft or revise specifications, strategies, and plans
- Advise on the most suitable methods and materials
- Develop project documents, including quality assurance policies
- Manage on-site work, logistics, and progress
- Conduct site inspections and reporting
- Draw up forecasts, costings, and budgets
- Monitor site compliance with legislative and safety protocols
Businesses often hire freelance civil project engineers for one-off requirements or because they need a specific skill set or area of expertise that doesn’t exist within their current workforce.
For example, an organization involved in delivering a new development or constructing new infrastructure may need a civil project engineer to design and adapt technical specifications to meet particular objectives or take responsibility for ensuring an engineering project meets a set of new regulations.
What Duties and Responsibilities Should Hirers Include in a Civil Project Engineer Job Post?
Companies and hirers can create a tailored job post, advertising to Guru’s extensive freelance community. The more detail, the more likely your candidates will be well-suited to the professional abilities you are looking for. While the exact requirements may differ between posts, some of the most common inclusions are as follows.
Civil Project Engineer Responsibilities
Project engineers can take on varied technical and engineering responsibilities but may be focused on scheduling, forecasting, planning, or management, such as:
- Scheduling engineering projects and monitoring project delivery
- Managing compliance with quality assurance policies, standards, and project specifications
- Interacting with clients to understand their objectives and represent their best interests in sourcing, commissioning, or providing recommendations
- Handling overall quality inspections, including budgets, planning, and on-site progress, with regular project reports
- Assigning tasks and duties within a project team and providing consultative and mentoring advice
- Liaising with project management teams and other stakeholders to assist, provide technical expertise, or suggest appropriate methods
- Reviewing wider project deliverables and interpreting designs, budgets, and schedules to recommend corrective changes or revisions
Skill Requirements for Civil Project Engineer Applicants
Most companies hiring a civil project engineer will specify that freelance professionals interested in the job must have previous, proven experience, and high-level knowledge of software like AutoCAD, used extensively in the civil engineering sector.
Soft and hard skills you might wish to include in your job post could comprise:
- A formal accreditation or qualification in engineering or a relevant field
- Excellent time management, leadership, and organizational skills
- A good track record of successful project management and supervision
- The capacity to work with multi-disciplined teams and projects
- A solid understanding of applicable standards, health and safety considerations, and legislative and regulatory requirements
Communication skills are often considered as vital as project engineering experience since freelancers need to establish clear dialogues with the business or employer, liaise with others involved in project delivery, and be able to express their ideas, advice, or proposed changes.
Civil project engineers can also be tasked with project planning, with the responsibility of setting the criteria that will ensure the project is delivered successfully and implementing detailed planning to allocate resources, budget, and teams.
What to Look for in a Freelance Civil Project Engineer
Businesses generally appoint civil project engineers based on their performance history, expertise, and specialist areas of knowledge.
Guru invites hirers to either create a job proposal to invite expressions of interest from suitably qualified candidates or browse the thousands of civil project engineer profiles to hand-select those professionals who are an ideal fit for their requirements.
