On a recent Tavistock extension the first round of contractor pricing came in £30k above the client’s budget. Rather than abandoning the project we ran a value engineering exercise: re-specifying glazing to a still-good but more competitively priced range, simplifying the roof detail, and changing the floor build-up to one the contractor was familiar with.

None of that affected the look or feel of the finished space. The client got the extension they wanted at the budget they had. The contractor got a job they wanted to do.

The discipline that makes VE work is honesty about which costs are buying outcomes the client values and which are buying outcomes nobody asked for.