Turton Bond
Internship Program

We’re delighted to continue our successful partnership with multiple Universities in the UK, and provide ambitious students with experience and exposure to the US construction market.

Turton Bond Internship Program

Turton Bond are excited to announce the reinstatement of our internship / placement program. This program involves Turton Bond sponsoring a Quantity Surveying student, typically from an RICS accredited overseas institution to come in and experience the day to day activities of a Cost Manager within the US.

Understandably, due to the recent world events, transferring international students to the US was an insurmountable challenge, but with the world, its borders and international embassies beginning to re-open, it’s great to have our program reinstated.

Our program is specifically designed to align with Turton Bond’s cultural values of empowering staff, regardless of experience and title, to have as much exposure to projects and clients as possible, whilst maintaining the structured training and instilling the traditional values of the profession with guidance and oversight.

Our most recent placement student is Alexia Bohin (Lexi), who joins the New York office from Liverpool John Moores University; the same University that the Director of New York, Rebecca Jones also attended. To date, Lexi has had exposure to measurement tasks for several blue chip clients, sat in on meetings with some of the largest tech firms in the world, and continues to learn about both the similarities and differences between Quantity Surveying and Cost Management between the US and UK markets.

Some notes from Alexia Bohin on her experience to date…

I was instantly fascinated by Turton Bond’s modern approach to practices and methods within our industry. For instance, we work in an open plan group of professionals, allowing better communication, support and confidence in the workplace.

Additionally, there is a clear embrace for software and technology, from the way in which we share files internally through to our financial reporting tools and systems.

Although a relatively young business, TB have an impressive clientele portfolio and work on such a wide array of projects.

Being a female in the construction industry, I appreciated the company’s values and high targets in diversity. Additionally, TB collectively has years of successful experience throughout a variety of sectors, which inspires me to learn more.

I’m particularly interested to learn how the traditional UK QS practices differ to those in the US, and excited to be involved in the wide spectrum of projects and Clients we cater for. This placement program is such a great opportunity for me to kickstart my career as well as providing invaluable first hand experience and knowledge to help me complete my degree next year.

 

Applications are now open for our 2023 Summer Intake. Please send resumes and a short paragraph of interest to [email protected]

 

Turton Bond
announces new Partner

Turton Bond are excited to announce Darren Flood as our newest Partner to the business. Darren joins our existing partners, Will Turton, Chris Bond & Joe Stevens, as a member of the business leadership team.

Turton Bond are excited to announce Darren Flood as our newest Partner to the business. Darren joins our existing partners, Will Turton, Chris Bond & Joe Stevens, as a member of the business leadership team.

Since joining Turton Bond in January 2021, Darren has been key to Turton Bond’s expansion and growth, especially on the West Coast. Darren’s goal was to mirror the growth and trajectory of the Turton Bond New York office, and in doing so, he has also been able to grow the team, diversify the client and sector portfolio, whilst also expanding Turton Bond’s presence in numerous locations on the West Coast.

“Joining Turton Bond has been such an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Being part of such a forward thinking company, with modern approaches and innovative ideas, I truly believe what we’re trying to achieve as a business will shape the next generation of construction management firms and the industry as a whole. I’m excited for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead”. – D.Flood

As Turton Bond continues to grow, Darren’s senior leadership role will further strengthen the company’s national presence and reputation within the industry as a best in class Project and Cost Management service provider.

About Turton Bond

Founded by Will Turton and Chris Bond, Turton Bond is a non-traditional construction consultancy offering specialist cost & project management services to a broad range of blue-chip and Fortune 500 clients.

Utilizing our extensive combined experience within the industry, we provide our clients with a first class, modern and tailored service enabling cost savings, process flow efficiencies and industry best practice. Our focus is to help our clients gain the maximum value out of their projects, while minimizing risk and providing a best in class work product that is both accessible and understandable.

Having previously worked for several large-scale consultancy services over the past two decades, founding partners Will Turton & Chris Bond feel strongly that things can and should be done differently.

Our team is a dynamic mix of professionals with specialist knowledge across a broad spectrum of sectors throughout the construction industry. We aim to improve the overall delivery of cost and project management through the embracing of technology and innovative ideas.

 

Insight into TB
Project
Management

Bobby Canner (Senior Project Manager) provides an insight into Turton Bonds Project Management service offering.

Introduction

Since 2019, Turton Bond has operated on the core principle of driving change in the cost management industry. The firm’s unwavering commitment to this idea has led to exponential growth as well as strong continued relationships with multiple blue-chip clients. As a result of the positive momentum with Cost Management, our existing and prospective clients also requested Project Management services. This provided Turton Bond with an entirely new set of challenges for our firm, but also untold opportunities to succeed and, most importantly, continue to fulfill our mission which is to deliver a best in class construction consultancy service.

Why Project Management?

While our core business was founded on Cost Management, we have always worked alongside Project Managers, so it was only natural that we would establish our own internal Project Management team. This brings a natural cross-pollination of skill sets and opportunities, whereby we can offer clients both of these vital services under the same umbrella of Turton Bond.

While our core business was founded on Cost Management, we have always worked alongside Project Managers, so it was only natural that we would establish our own internal Project Management team. This brings a natural cross-pollination of skill sets and opportunities, whereby we can offer clients both of these vital services under the same umbrella of Turton Bond.

Like any other consultancy, we will only continue to be successful as long as we maintain our clients’ trust and meet their evolving needs. Therefore, we were understandably initially cautious to not over-promise on our capabilities and potentially dilute the quality of service our clients were used to. As a result, we made a number of strategic hires and have built the team with recognized expertise and talent from the industry. This approach has been vindicated by the number of successful projects already delivered to date, and the continued growth and achievements of our PM team.

Approach to Project Management:

Our belief is that innovation starts at the earliest stages of the project cycle. For example, Agile methodologies have seen wider adoption in the technology space, particularly in the government sector. While Agile can be beneficial for more tech focused projects, construction projects are largely managed using a more traditional waterfall framework. The conventional construction project cycle is often linear, and follows a familiar pattern: gather requirements, design the space, build the project. With that said, most people with experience managing projects would agree that the process of gathering requirements and finalizing scope is anything but straightforward.

Identifying all necessary stakeholders, balancing conflicting requirements, and establishing a cohesive plan is complicated and time consuming, to say the least.

Through the use of digital project management tools such as Smartsheets, Trello, and others, scope requirements can be compiled, prioritized, and tracked on tools such as a Kanban board.

This, combined with other Agile techniques such as sprint sessions and retrospectives, allows for a more comprehensive approach to managing the complexity of a project scope. Turton Bond has been employing these methods not only for our clients, but also for our internal initiatives.

Our Project Management team has the benefit of leveraging Turton Bond’s in-house Cost Management team to drive project cost savings and value adds, improve the overall bid-leveling process (i.e. integrating the pricing and technical components of bids), and validate change orders against both cost and scope baseline metrics.

Our Goal / Key differentiators:

Our ultimate goal as a business remains to become a trusted leader and best in class in the field of Project and Cost Management. In order to answer the question of how we go about achieving this, our first step was to ask “how do we distinguish ourselves in a crowded industry”? Construction project management is a traditional field with a number of established players with considerable resources and experience. Our key points of differentiation can be condensed into three primary considerations:

    • Thoughtful Incorporation of Technology
    • Technology, specifically cloud-based tools, is nothing new to the industry. At each stage of the project lifecycle, we are looking to determine the most effective method for incorporating technology into our workflow, including sufficiently featured programs/applications that may not exist yet.

 

    • Alternative Methodologies
    • As mentioned above, elements of Agile methodology can benefit construction projects, particularly in earlier planning stages. It’s important to consider here that these techniques are intended to augment, but not necessarily replace, existing methods and best practices.

 

  • Flexible Approach
  • Conventional construction projects in the US involve a design-bid-build timeline, in which the design is developed prior to onboarding a general contractor. With that said, we are currently working with clients using a progressive design-build process, which involves onboarding both the architect and general contractor early on in the project. 

 

We believe that our creative flexibility, passion for new technologies, and innovative approach to project management are all fundamental to our success in this challenging and evolving environment. 

If you are interested in learning more about our Project Management services please reach out to Bobby Canner – [email protected] or Rebecca Jones – [email protected]

Celebrating the
Women of Turton
Bond

Bobby Canner (Senior Project Manager) provides an insight into Turton Bonds Project Management service offering.

Introduction

Since 2019, Turton Bond has operated on the core principle of driving change in the cost management industry. The firm’s unwavering commitment to this idea has led to exponential growth as well as strong continued relationships with multiple blue-chip clients. As a result of the positive momentum with Cost Management, our existing and prospective clients also requested Project Management services. This provided Turton Bond with an entirely new set of challenges for our firm, but also untold opportunities to succeed and, most importantly, continue to fulfill our mission which is to deliver a best in class construction consultancy service.

Why Project Management?

While our core business was founded on Cost Management, we have always worked alongside Project Managers, so it was only natural that we would establish our own internal Project Management team. This brings a natural cross-pollination of skill sets and opportunities, whereby we can offer clients both of these vital services under the same umbrella of Turton Bond.

While our core business was founded on Cost Management, we have always worked alongside Project Managers, so it was only natural that we would establish our own internal Project Management team. This brings a natural cross-pollination of skill sets and opportunities, whereby we can offer clients both of these vital services under the same umbrella of Turton Bond.

Like any other consultancy, we will only continue to be successful as long as we maintain our clients’ trust and meet their evolving needs. Therefore, we were understandably initially cautious to not over-promise on our capabilities and potentially dilute the quality of service our clients were used to. As a result, we made a number of strategic hires and have built the team with recognized expertise and talent from the industry. This approach has been vindicated by the number of successful projects already delivered to date, and the continued growth and achievements of our PM team.

Approach to Project Management:

Our belief is that innovation starts at the earliest stages of the project cycle. For example, Agile methodologies have seen wider adoption in the technology space, particularly in the government sector. While Agile can be beneficial for more tech focused projects, construction projects are largely managed using a more traditional waterfall framework. The conventional construction project cycle is often linear, and follows a familiar pattern: gather requirements, design the space, build the project. With that said, most people with experience managing projects would agree that the process of gathering requirements and finalizing scope is anything but straightforward.

Identifying all necessary stakeholders, balancing conflicting requirements, and establishing a cohesive plan is complicated and time consuming, to say the least.

Through the use of digital project management tools such as Smartsheets, Trello, and others, scope requirements can be compiled, prioritized, and tracked on tools such as a Kanban board.

This, combined with other Agile techniques such as sprint sessions and retrospectives, allows for a more comprehensive approach to managing the complexity of a project scope. Turton Bond has been employing these methods not only for our clients, but also for our internal initiatives.

Our Project Management team has the benefit of leveraging Turton Bond’s in-house Cost Management team to drive project cost savings and value adds, improve the overall bid-leveling process (i.e. integrating the pricing and technical components of bids), and validate change orders against both cost and scope baseline metrics.

Our Goal / Key differentiators:

Our ultimate goal as a business remains to become a trusted leader and best in class in the field of Project and Cost Management. In order to answer the question of how we go about achieving this, our first step was to ask “how do we distinguish ourselves in a crowded industry”? Construction project management is a traditional field with a number of established players with considerable resources and experience. Our key points of differentiation can be condensed into three primary considerations:

    • Thoughtful Incorporation of Technology
    • Technology, specifically cloud-based tools, is nothing new to the industry. At each stage of the project lifecycle, we are looking to determine the most effective method for incorporating technology into our workflow, including sufficiently featured programs/applications that may not exist yet.

 

    • Alternative Methodologies
    • As mentioned above, elements of Agile methodology can benefit construction projects, particularly in earlier planning stages. It’s important to consider here that these techniques are intended to augment, but not necessarily replace, existing methods and best practices.

 

  • Flexible Approach
  • Conventional construction projects in the US involve a design-bid-build timeline, in which the design is developed prior to onboarding a general contractor. With that said, we are currently working with clients using a progressive design-build process, which involves onboarding both the architect and general contractor early on in the project. 

 

We believe that our creative flexibility, passion for new technologies, and innovative approach to project management are all fundamental to our success in this challenging and evolving environment. 

If you are interested in learning more about our Project Management services please reach out to Bobby Canner – [email protected] or Rebecca Jones – [email protected]

Turton Bond x New Heights Partnership!

Turton Bond announces sponsorship of the U14 Girls Basketball Team at New Heights!

Turton Bond recently visited the 14U girls team at New Heights, a non-profit sports-based youth development and educational organization, at its new home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. We are thrilled to be sponsoring the team this season. Within the New Heights environment, young people are not only taught the necessary skills within basketball, but also the key skills required to help prepare them for success in high school, college, and beyond.

It was truly an amazing experience for the members of the Turton Bond team. We conducted workshops based on interview and communication techniques with the girls 14U team and learned about the girls’ aspirations both on and off the court. It was interesting to hear that beyond looking to play professional basketball, the girls had a wide range of other dreams, ranging from writing and journalism to artistic ventures. We were privileged to witness the fantastic job New Heights has already done mentoring the girls, and see just how much the girls have clearly taken in. The entire team showed exceptional potential, and exuded both a confidence and calmness that was beyond impressive.

We also loved seeing the team in their new jerseys! We sponsored their new gear with the hope that the girls will feel even more poised on the court. We’re truly humbled to work with the girls throughout their season, and are excited to see their continued growth on and off the court!

Data Center Market
Conditions Update – Q1, 2022

West Coast Lead Darren Flood provides our Q1 update on the Data Center Construction Market.

Market Outlook 2022

With an increasing demand for cloud computers, IT services, cyber security, etc. the requirement for support from Data Centers is stronger than ever. As the pandemic becomes further understood, alongside wider rollouts & adoption of vaccine programmes, construction volume and progress is beginning to increase and potentially return to a pre-pandemic climate. Clearly COVID-19 variants, changing restrictions, constrained supply chains and strong demand creates an unpredictable market, which we discuss in further detail throughout this article.

Turton Bond Outlook 2022

Turton Bond believes that the overall outlook for Data Center construction in 2022 will come with plenty of challenges and uncertainties. Inflation rates have reached levels that have not been seen since the 1980’s and with many other challenges including a shortage of skilled labor, supply chain issues and hikes in material pricing at unprecedented levels. 

Inflation / Escalation Rates

The current inflation rate in the U.S is projected to be at an average of 7%. We expect this percentage to continue steadily throughout Q1 2022 and anticipate a slow decline throughout the year bottoming out at about 4% based on current market trends.

Turton Bond believes that the overall outlook for Data Center construction in 2022 will come with plenty of challenges and uncertainties. Inflation rates have reached levels that have not been seen since the 1980’s and with many other challenges including a shortage of skilled labor, supply chain issues and hikes in material pricing at unprecedented levels. 

Construction Unemployment / Skilled Labor Shortages

Labor shortages were a prevalent topic throughout 2021, with unemployment rates currently between 3-4%. It is expected that labor shortages will continue throughout 2022. Some of the many driving factors behind the labor shortages are a lack of skilled workers, people over the age of 55 leaving the construction industry or deciding to take early retirement, vaccine mandates and national progression of the workforce.

Additionally, due to the rural nature of certain data center projects, this creates a need to incentivize sub-contractors to the area to complete the required work. Overall, the outlook for availability of trades is optimistic in 2022 but with a strong pipeline of construction works, a labor squeeze is likely to increase construction costs.

 

Material Cost Increases

According to the U.S, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2021 saw material prices increase overall by almost 25%. The majority of material prices have continued to increase over the last three months. Throughout Q1 2022, we believe material prices will continue to increase up until at least Q3 2022 and potentially start to show signs of decreasing from Q3 onwards.

The below metrics show some of the stand out changes in pricing over the last 3 months. The majority of material prices have increased over this duration and are projected to continue to increase over the remainder of Q1.

 

Long Lead & Supply Chain Issues 

Throughout 2021, supply chain disruptions continued to be a hot topic not only within the construction industry but across all industries. Uncertainty in the current construction climate is creating a unique challenge to projects, the data center market has been affected by pandemic-related restrictions in regard to Asia-Pacific material shortages and shipping delays. Delays are increasing pressure on schedules and driving construction costs higher. Datacenter operators with a primary focus on early procurement of key material and equipment (i.e. switchgear, UPS, chillers, generators, etc.) & building good relationships with vendors to guarantee delivery are finding success in a difficult market. Early procurements, off-site warehouse storage of key equipment & locking in prices before quarterly increases is the current recipe for successful procurement in a datacenter development. Here are some of the key materials affected by supply chain issues.

For further information on our Q1, 2022 Market Report, please reach out to our West Coast Regional Director – Darren Flood ([email protected]).