Cost Control Engineer

Role overview

Cost monitoring and corrective action

• Monitor actual expenditure against budgets, estimates, and project allocations; track daily and weekly manpower, materials, equipment, subcontractor, and operating costs.
• Identify cost overruns, abnormal spending, inefficient resource use, and causes of cost variances; recommend and monitor corrective actions.
• Analyze manpower productivity, equipment utilization, material consumption, subcontractor performance, and work execution methods.
• Coordinate with project managers, engineers, supervisors, and procurement teams to implement cost-control measures and escalate critical deviations.

Project cost and profitability

• Maintain project-level cost tracking for committed costs, actual costs, and estimated costs to complete.
• Prepare updated cost-to-complete forecasts, identify potential overruns, and analyze profitability throughout project execution.
• Review quantity, productivity, material, and execution-cost variations; identify underperforming activities and recommend recovery plans.

Resources, procurement, and suppliers

• Analyze labor deployment, overtime, excess manpower, equipment utilization, idle time, hire charges, and workforce or equipment allocation.
• Review procurement costs, purchase requisitions and orders, material use and wastage, stock movement, excess inventory, and avoidable purchases.
• Monitor subcontractor costs, productivity, resource deployment, contractual rates, variations, and potential financial exposure.
• Coordinate with procurement and stores to improve material planning and inventory efficiency; assess supplier and subcontractor cost efficiency.

Reporting

• Develop practical cost dashboards and prepare weekly summaries of performance, variances, risks, and corrective actions.
• Provide timely forecasts and early warnings of potential losses, presenting findings clearly with decisions and actions required.
• Maintain records of cost-control initiatives, savings, and operational improvements.

Requirements

• Be comfortable working with real-time operational data and visiting sites and workshops.
• Work closely with site teams, project managers, procurement, stores, and workshop operations to identify and address cost issues.
• Be able to investigate cost variances, identify inefficiencies, and recommend practical corrective measures.
• Communicate cost deviations, risks, forecasts, and recommended actions clearly to management and project teams.