Construction Estimator - Custom Homes & Outdoor Living

Luxury Pools and Outdoor Living; Central Coast Council; On-site; AUD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Four-day work week

Fridays off

Job summary

Luxury Pools and Outdoor Living in Terrigal on the Central Coast is seeking a Construction Estimator to own the numbers for custom homes and outdoor living projects. You will build cost models, prepare pre-design allowances, and develop real estimates to drive build decisions.

This role requires reading drawings, understanding construction methods, and using BuildXact or similar tools, with a four-day week and Fridays off as part of the company culture.

Qualifications

• Experience estimating residential construction, including new homes or high-end outdoor projects.
• Ability to read a full set of drawings and engineering documents.
• Strong knowledge of construction methods, materials, sequencing and cost drivers.
• Experience with estimating software (BuildXact) and strong spreadsheet ability.
• Accurate arithmetic with margins, markups and GST; clear written assumptions.

Responsibilities

• Create pre-design cost models to inform client costs and design stage charges.
• Develop final estimates from drawings, pricing, provisional sums and exclusions.
• Prepare variation estimates and update clients or the Pre-Construction & Development Manager.
• Read drawings, coordinate with designers and site supervisors to capture pricing needs.
• Obtain supplier and trade quotes and keep pricing current.
• Track budgets through build and flag drift early.

Skills

Estimating experience

Reading drawings

Spreadsheet proficiency

Costing accuracy

Communication

Education

Construction qualification

Tools

BuildXact

Excel

Job description

Construction Estimator - Custom Homes & Outdoor Living

Luxury Pools and Outdoor Living – Terrigal NSW

Full Time. Four days a week. Fridays off. Central Coast.

Monday to Thursday, 7:30am to 5:00pm, from our Terrigal office. Every Friday is yours. No Sydney commute, no weekend work, and years of work already booked.

About us

Luxury Pools & Outdoor Living is an award-winning, licensed design-and-build company on the Central Coast of NSW. We design and build custom homes, concrete pools and complete outdoor living spaces. We are not a pool company and we are not a volume builder.

Our architectural design is in-house, we take every job through council ourselves, we own our machinery, and we build with our own staff, for the most part.

Our site team is trained in the Luxury Pools & Outdoor Living way: clean sites, respect for our clients and their neighbours, and a focus on working efficiently. Our office team works diligently behind them, so no one on site loses time organising materials, other team members, machinery or anything else the site needs. They keep doing what they do best — building.

See the work:
luxurypools.net.au/about
instagram.com/luxurypoolsandoutdoorliving

Almost all of our work is on the Central Coast.

The role

This role is a big part of what keeps our site team working. You own the numbers on every job, and your estimates are what the office plans from — the materials, the machinery, the people and the sequence a site needs, in the right order and on time.

There are three distinct pieces of work, and all three are yours:

Pre-design cost models. Before there is a design, engineering, a report or an approval, you build the allowance model that tells a client what their project is likely to cost and tells us what the design stage should be charged at. It is built from hours and allowances rather than takeoffs, it carries its assumptions on its face, and it is honest about what it does not yet know.

Final estimates. Once the design, engineering and approvals exist, you build the real estimate off the drawings — quantities, supplier and trade pricing, provisional sums, exclusions — and that is the number the build contract is written against.

Variations. Updating estimates when the job changes, whether in the design-to-build-ready phase or during construction, and providing them to our Pre-Construction & Development Manager for the client update, or sending notice direct to the client.

Around those three:

Read and reconcile drawings, engineering, specifications and consultant reports before they reach a price.

Work with our designers, approval managers and site supervisors to get what an estimate actually needs, rather than pricing around the gaps.

Obtain supplier and trade quotes, compare them on like terms, and keep pricing current.

Allow properly for our own machinery, labour and materials, so the office can schedule the site from your numbers.

Keep our rates true to what jobs actually cost, using the job-cost history we hold in BuildXact.

Visit sites on the Central Coast to see what you are pricing and check how it went.

Track budgets through the build and flag drift early.

We work on a cost-plus basis. Pricing decisions are the Director's — your job is to make sure those decisions rest on numbers that hold up.

What you will need

Demonstrated experience estimating residential construction — new homes, substantial renovations, or high-end outdoor and structural work.

Confidence reading a full set of drawings and engineering, and the judgement to see what is missing from one.

Strong command of construction methods, materials, sequencing and what things genuinely cost.

Estimating or build-management software (we use BuildXact) and real spreadsheet ability.

Accurate arithmetic, particularly margin, markup and GST. The difference between a 25% markup and a 25% margin is money, and we expect you to know which is which.

Clear written communication. An estimate nobody can follow is not finished.

The discipline to write an assumption down instead of burying it.

A current driver's licence and reliable transport.

Formal qualifications in construction, quantity surveying or building are preferred and can be outweighed by proven experience, a solid history and good references. Experience with high-end residential or luxury outdoor projects is welcome and not essential.

What we offer

A four-day working week, every week, with Fridays off.

Work already booked — in build, in design and in the council process — plus steady enquiry.

A trained, tidy and efficient site team, qualified site supervisors running the day-to-day, and an office that backs you up.

A hands‑on director you can get an answer from, with more than 25 years in the industry and qualifications across building, project management and business.

Established systems: BuildXact for build and cost management, stage checklists our site supervisors complete so only approved items are installed, and digital site forms and time recording.

A company known for paying its people properly and to industrial relations standards, and for paying every supplier and trade each Monday. That reputation makes your job easier, because people answer the phone.

High-end projects you will be glad to have your name on, and professional development to go with them.