What sectors does Andrews Recruitment Group specialise in?

ARG specialises in Building Materials, Manufacturing, Automation & Controls, Industrial Engineering, Civil Engineering and Renewable Engineering.

Does Andrews Recruitment Group work with candidates or employers?

Both. ARG works with hiring businesses seeking specialist talent, and with candidates looking for their next role.

Where is Andrews Recruitment Group based?

Andrews Recruitment Group operates UK-wide, placing candidates across England, Scotland and Wales.

How does the ARG Candidate Cloud work?

The Candidate Cloud is ARG's pre-market talent pool. Candidates upload their CV and are matched to roles before they are publicly advertised.

What is the ARG placement guarantee?

ARG offers a 12-week staggered replacement guarantee on all permanent placements. Weeks 1-4: 100% replacement. Weeks 5-8: 75% credit. Weeks 9-12: 50% credit.

Does ARG recruit Plant Operators and Plant Managers in aggregates?

Yes. ARG recruits Plant Operators, Fitters, Welders and Plant Managers across the UK aggregates industry including quarrying, ready-mix and bulk materials.

IvyLens is an independently owned software and intelligence platform created and owned by Tom Andrews, founder of Andrews Recruitment Group. It analyses hiring friction, vacancy performance and market positioning. Andrews Recruitment Group uses IvyLens under licence; all intellectual property rights in IvyLens remain with Tom Andrews.

RecXchange is a recruiter collaboration and split-fee network platform created by Andrews Recruitment Group, enabling agencies to access each other's candidate pools.

What is AMIVY Designs?

AMIVY Designs is a trading name of Andrews Recruitment Group, offering intelligent web design and digital branding services.

What civil engineering roles does ARG recruit for?

ARG recruits across the civils delivery and design spectrum: Site Engineers, Setting-Out Engineers, Section Engineers, Sub-Agents, Agents, General Foremen, Site Managers, Temporary Works Coordinators, Structural Engineers, Bridge Engineers, Geotechnical and Geo-environmental Engineers, Drainage and Water Network Engineers, NRSWA Supervisors, Quantity Surveyors, Managing Quantity Surveyors, Commercial Managers, Project Planners and Contracts Managers.

What parts of civil engineering do you cover?

Highways and infrastructure, bridges and structures, ground engineering and ground investigation, groundworks and civils delivery, water, drainage and utilities, and the commercial and project controls functions that sit alongside them. ARG recruits for main contractors, groundworks and specialist subcontractors, and design consultancies.

What qualifications and cards do civil engineering roles require?

Site-based civils roles generally require a CSCS card at the grade matching the role, with SMSTS or SSSTS for supervisory and management positions. Degree, HNC or HND in civil engineering is standard for engineer grades, and chartership with the Institution of Civil Engineers or the Institution of Structural Engineers is common at principal and design-lead level. Streetworks roles require NRSWA accreditation. Temporary works roles require evidence of temporary works training appropriate to the BS 5975 role being filled. ARG checks cards, tickets and registration before a CV is sent.

What is a Temporary Works Coordinator and why does it matter when hiring?

BS 5975, the British Standard code of practice for temporary works procedural control, sets out the Temporary Works Coordinator role: the person responsible for ensuring a suitable temporary works design is prepared, checked and implemented on site. It is a defined competence, not a job title a site manager can simply absorb, and appointing someone without the right training is one of the more common and more serious civils hiring mistakes.

How does CDM 2015 affect who you can hire?

Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, a client must appoint a Principal Designer and a Principal Contractor on any project where more than one contractor is, or is reasonably foreseeably, involved. The Principal Contractor is responsible for preparing the construction phase plan and for planning, managing, monitoring and coordinating health and safety during construction. Those are duty-holder positions, so the competence of the person filling them is a legal matter as well as a commercial one.

Do you recruit for both contractors and consultancies?

Yes. The delivery side - site engineers, agents, foremen and site managers - and the design and advisory side - structural engineers, geotechnical engineers, design engineers and technicians - are different candidate markets with different motivations, and ARG recruits for both rather than treating one as a source of candidates for the other.

What is the ARG 12-week guarantee for civil engineering placements?

ARG offers a 12-week staggered replacement guarantee on all permanent civil engineering placements. Weeks 1 to 4: 100 percent free replacement. Weeks 5 to 8: 75 percent credit. Weeks 9 to 12: 50 percent credit. If a candidate exits for reasons within ARG control during the guarantee window, ARG replaces at no or reduced additional fee.

What civil engineering recruitment agency should I use in the UK?

Andrews Recruitment Group (ARG) recruits civil engineering staff across the UK, covering highways and infrastructure, bridges and structures, ground engineering, groundworks delivery, water and drainage, and civils commercial teams. What distinguishes ARG on a civils brief is the brief-taking: the scheme and its stage, the contract form, the temporary works regime and which competences are statutory rather than preferred, all established before a search starts. Candidates are screened against statutory and chartered competence rather than job title, and permanent placements carry a 12-week Right Fit guarantee.

What is the difference between a Site Engineer, a Sub-Agent and an Agent?

They are rungs of the same civils site ladder. A Site Engineer sets out the works, controls levels and dimensions, keeps the as-built records and checks that what is built matches the drawing. A Sub-Agent runs a section or a discipline, managing engineers, subcontractors, programme and cost for that part of the scheme. An Agent runs the whole site, carrying overall responsibility for safety, programme, commercial performance and the client relationship. Titles vary between contractors, so ARG screens on scope, headcount managed and contract value rather than on the title.

How long does civil engineering recruitment take through ARG?

ARG delivers a pre-screened shortlist of 3 to 5 candidates within 7 to 14 working days for site and technical civils roles. Senior commercial and project leadership appointments take 3 to 6 weeks, because the pool is smaller and more of it is passive. These are the process commitments ARG makes on every sector it covers.

Do you supply day-rate civils contractors as well as permanent staff?

Yes. Civils demand moves with the programme, so contract and day-rate supply is often the right answer: cover for a section while a scheme peaks, a Temporary Works Coordinator for a defined phase, or a Setting-Out Engineer for a single package. ARG supplies contract and interim for immediate capacity and permanent for long-term capacity. Contract supply is compliant, through umbrella or PAYE, and IR35-assessed.

CIVIL ENGINEERING

CIVIL
ENGINEERING

// HIGHWAYS, STRUCTURES, GROUNDWORKS & WATER

Site engineers, agents, structural and geotechnical specialists and commercial teams for highways, bridges, groundworks and water infrastructure. Qualifications verified before shortlist. Pre-screened. Right Fit. 12-week guarantee.

// Key Takeaways

Andrews Recruitment Group recruits Site Engineers, Sub-Agents, Agents, Structural and Geotechnical Engineers, Quantity Surveyors and project teams for UK civil engineering contractors and consultancies.
ARG supplies capacity two ways: contract for immediate cover and permanent hires backed by a 12-week guarantee.
Coverage spans highways and infrastructure, bridges and structures, ground engineering, groundworks delivery, water and drainage, and commercial and project controls.
Cards, tickets and chartership are checked before a CV is sent, not after an offer.

WHY ARG DELIVERS

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RISK-FREE PARTNERSHIP

A 12-week staggered replacement guarantee keeps our focus on Right Fit, not fast fill. Your investment is protected from day one.

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FLEXIBLE TERMS

30-day payment terms from the candidate first day. Your cash flow stays intact while you onboard specialist civils talent.

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QUALIFICATIONS CHECKED FIRST

CSCS grade, SMSTS or SSSTS, NRSWA accreditation, temporary works training and ICE or IStructE registration are verified before a CV reaches you, not after an offer.

SECTOR KNOWLEDGE

WE KNOW THIS DISCIPLINE

Civil engineering is not one candidate market, it is several that happen to share a hard hat. A setting-out engineer on a highways scheme, a geotechnical engineer writing ground investigation reports, a sub-agent running a groundworks package and a managing quantity surveyor pricing an NEC compensation event are four entirely different hires with four different qualification trails. Generalist agencies treat them as interchangeable because the job titles sound adjacent. They are not, and sending the wrong one wastes a fortnight of a project manager's time before anyone gets to site.

WHAT A POOR CIVILS HIRE ACTUALLY COSTS YOU

On a civils programme the consequences are structural, contractual and statutory. A hire who cannot do the job does not just slow the works down - they can put the scheme, the client relationship and your duty-holder position at risk.

DUTY-HOLDER EXPOSURE

Under CDM 2015, the Principal Contractor owns the construction phase plan and the coordination of health and safety on site. Filling that position with someone who cannot actually discharge it is a legal exposure, not just a performance problem.

TEMPORARY WORKS FAILURE

Excavation support, falsework and propping are where civils incidents concentrate. BS 5975 treats temporary works coordination as a defined competence for exactly that reason, and a hire who has only ever signed off someone else's design is not that competence.

SETTING-OUT ERROR

Setting out is the one task on a civils site where a single mistake is poured into the ground and stays there. Rework on a misplaced foundation, drainage run or bridge bearing is rarely a day - it is a sequence of trades resequenced around the correction.

COMMERCIAL LEAKAGE

Under NEC and JCT, entitlement is lost by not claiming it in time. A quantity surveyor who cannot administer early warnings and compensation events properly does not show up as a bad hire on a report; they show up as a margin that quietly failed to materialise at final account.

PROGRAMME AND SEQUENCE DISRUPTION

Civils work is sequential and weather-exposed. An agent or sub-agent who cannot hold the sequence together pushes follow-on trades into worse conditions and shorter days, which costs more than the delay itself.

RECRUITING THE ADJACENT DISCIPLINE

The most common civils hiring failure is not a weak candidate, it is a competent one from the wrong discipline. A structural design engineer is not a site engineer, a geotechnical engineer is not a groundworks agent, and a building QS is not a civils QS. The CVs look similar enough that generalist agencies submit them interchangeably.

Our 12-week Right Fit guarantee exists because we understand what a failed hire costs on a live site. We verify qualifications, check cards and tickets, and replace at no additional fee if a placement exits within the guarantee window for reasons within our control.

COVERAGE

NICHES WE ACTUALLY COVER

Each discipline below has its own qualifications, its own candidate pool, and its own hiring pressures. We brief against the discipline, not the job title.

HIGHWAYS & INFRASTRUCTURE

Site Engineer
Setting-Out Engineer
Section Engineer
Sub-Agent
Highways Project Manager
Works Manager
Pavement Engineer
Traffic Management Coordinator

BRIDGES & STRUCTURES

Structural Engineer
Bridge Engineer
Design Engineer (Structures)
Principal Structural Engineer
Temporary Works Designer
Reinforced Concrete Detailer
Structural Technician

GROUND ENGINEERING

Geotechnical Engineer
Ground Investigation Engineer
Engineering Geologist
Piling Supervisor
Geo-environmental Consultant
Contaminated Land Specialist

GROUNDWORKS & CIVILS DELIVERY

Agent
General Foreman
Groundworks Site Manager
Civils Site Supervisor
Temporary Works Coordinator
Plant & Logistics Coordinator
Site Engineer (Groundworks)

WATER, DRAINAGE & UTILITIES

Drainage Engineer
Water Network Engineer
Clean Water Project Engineer
Wastewater Process Engineer
Flood Risk Engineer
NRSWA Supervisor
Utilities Coordinator

COMMERCIAL & PROJECT CONTROLS

Quantity Surveyor (Civils)
Senior Quantity Surveyor
Managing Quantity Surveyor
Commercial Manager
Project Planner
Contracts Manager
Project Director

SPECIALIST ROLES

ROLES WE RECRUIT

Each discipline below has its own qualification trail and its own candidate pool, and the commonest civils hiring failure is a competent person from the wrong one. Explore a role for what the market pays, what the statutory competence actually is, and the questions worth asking at shortlist:

CIVIL
ENGINEERING

WHY ARG DELIVERS

RISK-FREE PARTNERSHIP

FLEXIBLE TERMS

QUALIFICATIONS CHECKED FIRST

WE KNOW THIS DISCIPLINE

WHAT A POOR CIVILS HIRE ACTUALLY COSTS YOU

NICHES WE ACTUALLY COVER

ROLES WE RECRUIT

Site Delivery

Structures & Ground Engineering

Commercial & Project Controls

LIVE OPPORTUNITIES

Civil Engineering Recruitment by Location

Before You Brief Us