Role permissions decide who on a quantity surveying team can view, edit, price, approve and export project information. The sound approach is to grant access by job role, give each role the minimum it needs, and keep a record of every change. This guide sets out a practical role structure for a small UK QS team, the information that deserves tighter control, and the UK guidance behind it.
TL;DR
- Grant access by role, not person by person, and start each role with the minimum access needed for the job.
- Treat rates, margins and tender build-ups as a separate permission from quantities. Many people need one and not the other.
- Keep editing, reviewing and signing off as three distinct permissions, so the person who measures is not the only person who approves.
- Exports and shared files can carry hidden data, so control who can export as well as who can view.
- Review access on a schedule and log every change to a role.
Table of Contents
- What role permissions mean for a QS team
- Start from least privilege
- A practical role structure for an SME QS team
- Keep quantities and rates apart
- Project-level access, not firm-wide access
- Edit, review and approve as separate steps
- Exports and files carry data too
- Personal data and UK GDPR
- Keep an audit trail of permission changes
- Checking a vendor's permission model
- Setting up roles: a short procedure
- Common mistakes
- Where QuantiFlow fits
- FAQ
- Sources
What role permissions mean for a QS team
A role is a named bundle of permissions. A permission is a single action, such as viewing a drawing, editing a measured quantity, changing a rate or exporting a Bill of Quantities (BoQ). Assigning permissions to roles rather than to individuals means a new starter gets the right access on day one, and a leaver loses it in one step.
For a quantity surveyor, the stakes are specific. A BoQ is a commercial document. It may sit alongside cost plans, subcontractor quotes, preliminaries build-ups and the margin a contractor intends to carry. The wrong person seeing that, or the wrong person quietly editing a quantity, creates commercial and professional risk.
The same logic applies whether your tools are a shared drive, a spreadsheet, a project management platform or dedicated takeoff software. If you want the wider picture first, our guide to SaaS for quantity surveyors covers what cloud tools mean for a UK practice.
Start from least privilege
The principle most guidance converges on is least privilege. UK digital construction guidance says role-based access control should give users, employees and third-party vendors only the minimum access necessary for their specific job functions. The same document recommends reviewing access controls semi-annually, because technology and project requirements change.
In practice, that means building roles upward from nothing. Do not begin with a full-access role and subtract. Begin with a viewer role and add only what each job demonstrably needs.
A practical role structure for an SME QS team
The table below is a suggested starting point, not a standard. Adjust it to your headcount. In a three-person practice one person may hold several roles, but the permissions should still be separate so you can split them when the team grows.
| Role | Typical holder | View drawings and quantities | Edit quantities | View and edit rates | Review and sign off | Export | Manage users |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Administrator | Practice owner or office manager | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| Lead QS | Senior or chartered surveyor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Estimator or assistant QS | Junior surveyor, technician | Yes | Yes | View only, or none | No | Draft only | No |
| Commercial or pricing lead | Estimator, commercial manager | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Architect or design contact | External or in-house designer | Drawings and issued BoQ only | No | No | No | No | No |
| Client or reviewer | Client-side representative | Issued documents only | No | No | Comment only | No | No |
| Subcontractor | Trade package supplier | Own package only | No | Own package only | No | No | No |
Two choices in that table are deliberate.
The administrator cannot edit commercial content. Managing users is an administrative task. It should not automatically carry the power to change quantities or rates. Separating the two limits what a compromised or careless admin account can do.
Sign-off belongs to one named role. The surveyor who measures should not be the only check on their own work. On a small team the lead QS reviews, and on a one-person practice you can still require a deliberate review step before issue.
Keep quantities and rates apart
The most useful single split is between measurement and money. Quantities describe what is on the drawings. Rates, allowances, margins and subcontractor prices describe what you intend to charge or pay.
An architect checking whether a wall type was picked up correctly needs the quantities. They do not need your rates. A subcontractor pricing a package needs their own scope. They do not need to see the other trades, or the margin built into the main contractor's tender.
One UK software vendor's guidance makes the point that configuring access per project rather than per person lets firms bring subcontractors into a shared system without exposing commercial rates or margins. We have not used that vendor's page as a basis for any recommendation. The principle stands on its own: rate visibility should be a permission you grant deliberately, not a side effect of project access.
Project-level access, not firm-wide access
A common shortcut in smaller firms is one-size-fits-all access to keep work moving. It is convenient until a subcontractor on one job can see a client's tender on another.
Access by project works better:
- Each project has its own member list.
- A person's role can differ between projects. A surveyor may be lead on one job and a reviewer on another.
- Removing someone from a project is one action and does not touch their other work.
This mirrors how UK information management standards treat shared project environments. Guidance aligned to BS EN ISO 19650 describes a managed workflow in which information is developed, checked, shared, authorised, accepted, published and archived. It treats access to information in a common data environment as something to be planned and authorised before it is shared. That guidance also expects an audit trail of updates to information containers and their exports.
The ISO 19650 framework puts responsibility with the client: the appointing party sets out the information requirements and the project's information protocol. If you work on a project run under ISO 19650, your own role design should sit inside whatever access arrangements the appointing party has defined, not alongside them.
Edit, review and approve as separate steps
BoQ production passes through stages, and permissions should follow them.
- Measure. The surveyor or assistant records quantities from drawings.
- Check. A second person reviews the measurement against the drawings and the preamble or measurement rules in use.
- Price. Rates are applied, usually by someone with commercial responsibility.
- Approve. The lead QS signs off the document for issue.
- Issue. The approved version is exported and sent to the client, designer or tenderers.
- Lock. The issued version becomes read-only. Later changes create a new revision.
Locking at step 6 matters more than most teams realise. If an issued BoQ can be silently edited, you cannot say with confidence what a tenderer priced. Our guides to drawing revision control for QS teams and construction document control for NRM2-aligned BoQs go through how revisions and issued versions fit together.
Exports and files carry data too
Hiding a folder is not the same as protecting what is in it. RICS guidance on electronic document management warns that digital files often contain metadata about original clients or project terms, so shared files and exports can disclose confidential information.pdf) even when folders are restricted. Note that the version of that note we reviewed is an archived RICS document, so check the current RICS position before relying on it for a policy.
For role design, this leads to three rules:
- Make export a separate permission from view.
- Restrict who can export documents that contain rates or margins.
- Before sending a file outside the firm, check what it contains beyond what is visible on the page, such as document properties and embedded comments.
Personal data and UK GDPR
QS work involves more personal data than people expect. Tender submissions can include named personnel and referees, and project files hold client and contractor contact details. Legal guidance for UK quantity surveying firms notes that firms must comply with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 when handling identifiable personal data, and recommends technical measures including multi-factor authentication, device encryption and role-based access to project folders (Sprintlaw, published 11 May 2026).
The same source stresses that your role as controller or processor on a given project affects who carries which data security responsibilities. Many firms treat every data flow identically, which blurs that line. If you are unsure which applies on a project, take advice from a data protection solicitor or your professional indemnity insurer's guidance rather than relying on a default.
RICS also publishes data handling guidance for members (2020), which asks you to consider what confidential information you hold and what you use it for. Role permissions are one of the practical ways to show that you have.
Keep an audit trail of permission changes
Permissions only protect you if you can show what they were at a given date. A useful log records:
- who was added to or removed from a project, and by whom;
- any change to what a role can do;
- who edited, reviewed, approved and exported each version;
- the date and time of each event.
When a client queries a quantity months after issue, that record answers who changed it and when without anyone reconstructing events from memory. Our article on audit log best practices for UK quantity surveyors covers what to capture and how long to keep it.
Checking a vendor's permission model
If you are choosing software, test the permission model before you test the features. Ask the vendor, and try in a trial project:
- Can I create custom roles, or am I limited to a fixed list?
- Can rates be hidden from a role that can still see quantities?
- Can access differ by project for the same user?
- Can I restrict export separately from view?
- Is there a log of permission changes I can export?
- What happens to a user's work when they are removed?
Our guide to construction SaaS security lists wider questions to put to any vendor, and the QS SaaS implementation checklist suggests piloting a handful of drawings before you roll anything out to the whole team.
Setting up roles: a short procedure
- List the jobs, not the people. Write down every task touched during BoQ production, from measuring to issuing.
- Group tasks into roles. Aim for five to seven roles. More than that and nobody will maintain them.
- Mark the sensitive items. Rates, margins, tender build-ups, client contact details and unissued drafts.
- Assign the minimum. Give each role only the permissions its tasks need.
- Assign by project. Add people to projects with a role, rather than giving blanket access.
- Name one approver per project. Make sign-off an explicit permission.
- Lock issued versions. Treat any later change as a new revision.
- Schedule a review. Put a six-monthly access review in the diary, in line with the semi-annual review the UK guidance recommends, and also review whenever someone joins, leaves or changes role.
Common mistakes
Sharing one login. It removes any possibility of an audit trail. Each person needs their own account.
Giving the owner every permission by default. Senior people are often the most exposed to phishing. Hold them to the same least-privilege rule.
Forgetting leavers and external parties. A subcontractor whose package finished last year should not still have access. Check external accounts first at each review.
Letting roles multiply. Every extra role is another thing to audit. Merge roles that differ by one permission.
Treating this as an IT task. Access design reflects commercial judgement. One chartered surveyor quoted in the UK BIM Framework guidance describes establishing who can access what as central to configuring a shared environment, and the QS is well placed to define it.
Where QuantiFlow fits
QuantiFlow is in development. It reads construction drawings and produces a draft Bill of Quantities for a quantity surveyor to review and sign off. If you want to follow its progress, see QuantiFlow's AI quantity takeoffs for UK QS firms.
FAQ
What is the difference between a role and a permission?
A permission is one specific action, such as editing a quantity or exporting a document. A role is a named set of permissions that you assign to people, such as lead QS or reviewer. Managing roles is easier than managing individual permissions as a team grows.
Should an assistant QS be able to see rates?
Only if their work needs it. Many assistants measure and check quantities without pricing, so view-only or no rate access is a reasonable default. You can widen it later, which is safer than narrowing it after the fact.
How often should we review who has access?
UK digital construction guidance recommends reviewing access controls on a semi-annual basis. Also review at every change of staff, and when a project closes. External accounts such as subcontractors and clients deserve the closest look.
Do role permissions satisfy UK GDPR?
They help, but they are not enough alone. Legal guidance for UK QS firms lists role-based access among several technical measures, alongside multi-factor authentication and encryption, and expects a documented lawful basis for processing. For a specific situation, take advice from a data protection specialist.
Can a sole practitioner ignore all this?
Not entirely. Even alone, you work with clients, designers and subcontractors who may need limited access. Separating draft from issued documents and controlling what you share outside gives you the same protection with fewer roles.
Sources
- Delivering Valuable Data, UK BIM Framework (2023)
- Facilitating the common data environment, UK BIM Framework (2020)
- Information management according to BS EN ISO 19650, Guidance Part 1: Concepts
- EDM guidance note, RICS (archived).pdf)
- Privacy rules for UK quantity surveying firms, Sprintlaw (11 May 2026)
- Data handling, RICS (27 May 2020)
- Permissions: project-level access by role, DuoApp
Recommended
- Drawing Revision Control for QS Teams: An Auditable Workflow
- Change Log in a BoQ: What to Record and How to Keep It
- Remeasure After Revisions: 5 NRM2 Steps for UK QSs
- Construction Document Control for NRM2-Aligned BoQs
This article is for general information only and is not professional, legal or commercial advice. Quantity surveying decisions should be taken by a qualified professional with reference to the specific project, drawings and contract in question. Content is produced with AI assistance and reviewed before publication. QuantiFlow Ltd accepts no liability for reliance on it.