One route to becoming a Construction Estimator is professional training through individual classes, comprehensive certificate programs, or intensive bootcamps. Essential classes for construction estimation cover this job’s key skills: reading building plans, translating plans into detailed lists of requirements and their costs, and assembling these lists into comprehensive estimates. Classes on computer-aided design and 3D modeling software help Estimators use these programs in their work. Construction Estimators also need to learn specialized software for detailed building modeling and construction estimation itself. For students with little prior building experience, classes on construction planning skills are also important. Some students may consider training in construction management, construction engineering, or specialties like electrical work, landscaping, or interior design. 

What is a Construction Estimator?

Construction estimation, also called quantity surveying, is a specialized type of cost estimation. Construction Estimators predict, as accurately as possible, what a building project will cost, considering the project's full scope to produce detailed cost breakdowns and summarized estimates. Construction Estimators may produce multiple estimates for the same project, starting with a general conceptual estimate and then generating progressively more detailed estimates as information becomes available.

To perform this work accurately, Construction Estimators must have a detailed understanding of construction work, including:

  • Reading building plans;
  • Listing the materials, labor, and equipment needed for a project;
  • Knowing the prices for these needs;
  • Anticipating other possible costs like insurance and fees; and
  • Anticipating factors that could alter those costs. 

Some of this knowledge comes from formal studies, some from construction experience, and some from active research. Construction Estimators must be good communicators, able to discuss projects with anyone involved: clients, supervisors, government agencies, tradespersons, subcontractors, vendors, and financial officers. These discussions elicit information and clarify a project’s requirements and limitations so that the Estimator can fully calculate its details. Attention to detail is another crucial skill for a Construction Estimator. The success of their work relies on their ability to spell out every possible aspect of construction projects and correctly anticipate their costs or influence on costs. 

Construction Estimators frequently work for building contractors, creating their bids for proposals or helping them decide what jobs are worth bidding on. Construction Estimators also assist in budgeting for construction projects at building companies, real estate developers, or government agencies like transportation, urban planning, or civil engineering. Some Construction Estimators are direct employees of these industries, often advising an administrator or supervisor or else contributing to a construction planning team. Other Construction Estimators are self-employed, working as freelancers whenever and wherever their services are needed. Freelance Construction Estimators often assist smaller businesses that only need occasional estimation work, but such independent Estimators may also be hired to produce estimates for comparison against contractor bids or internal budgeting, to make sure those estimates are reasonable.

Some Construction Estimators work remotely, collecting information from local clients and contacts and then building their estimates from these reports. Other Estimators travel as necessary, examining construction sites, talking to local contacts, and meeting with clients. Additionally, depending on their position, a Construction Estimator’s work might not be done after preconstruction. Some Estimators monitor jobs in progress to watch for potential savings, cost overruns, inventory and labor problems, and other concerns that could alter a project’s final cost. 

What Skills Will I Need to Learn to Become a Construction Estimator?

The basic skills for construction estimation start with mathematics and data management. Accounting or similar financial training gives Estimators an understanding of pricing and its variations, anticipating unplanned expenses, and budgeting. Construction Estimators also need to mind details at many scales, from counting the nails needed for a wall to listing the permits required for a building project. Estimators must organize and prioritize multiple tasks; a single estimate includes multiple interacting parts and an Estimator often works on multiple estimates at once. Verbal and written communication skills are important both to gather information from contacts as well as to generate and explain reports.

Construction Estimators must also learn construction planning in significant detail, including: 

  • Reading blueprints and other planning documents
  • Knowing local building codes
  • Detailing required materials, equipment, and labor
  • Calculating prices for said materials, equipment, and labor
  • Adding incidental costs like transportation, site cleanup, and waste disposal fees;
  • Anticipating overhead costs like licenses, insurance, and building bonds;
  • Considering contingencies: unplannable variables like poor weather or material shortages that could increase costs
  • Including an appropriate profit for contractor bids

Technical skills are increasingly important throughout the construction industry. Construction Estimators need to learn and use multiple technical tools to gather information, discuss projects, perform analyses, prepare reports, and file documents. These tools include familiar office software but also cloud-based collaborative platforms and specialized software for tasks like computer-aided design (CAD), 3D modeling, inventory management, personnel tracking, and accounting. Certain programs directly assist construction estimation by storing and organizing information, automating estimation tasks, and generating reports. Using these programs fluently makes an Estimator’s work more orderly, efficient, and accurate.

Learn Construction Estimating

  • Nationally accredited
  • Create your own portfolio
  • Free student software
  • Learn at your convenience
  • Authorized Autodesk training center

Learn More

What Courses Should I Enroll in to Become a Construction Estimator?

Construction Estimation Bootcamp

A bootcamp course teaches the central concepts, techniques, and tools for its subject, skipping secondary topics for a faster path to professional readiness. A career-focused bootcamp is often a streamlined version of a more thorough training program. In particular, a construction estimation bootcamp teaches just the core skills Construction Estimators need without diverting into specific types of construction or adjacent skills like management or negotiation. 

The central topics of a construction estimation bootcamp are the processes every Construction Estimator uses:

  • Reading building plans
  • Performing takeoffs:
    • Using plans to create inventories of materials, tasks, and equipment
    • Translating inventories into price estimates
  • Accounting for overhead costs like insurance and license fees
  • Preparing bid proposals for projects, adding margins for profit and contingencies like material shortages

Depending on its length, a bootcamp might discuss how to gather information like contacts and pricing for subcontractors and vendors. Most bootcamps also include sample estimation projects where students use all of that course’s lessons, demonstrating their learning in a form suitable for a starting portfolio.

Construction Estimators need to use several types of software, and a construction estimation bootcamp might teach one or more of these programs:

  • 3D modeling programs like SketchUp and/or Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) programs like Autodesk AutoCAD, to view and analyze building plans
  • Building Information Model (BIM) systems like Autodesk Revit that combine detailed 3D building models with informational resources to create functional, interactive plans for building projects
  • Construction estimation software such as ProEst that assists Construction Estimators by breaking down estimation tasks, storing and applying information resources, prompting to avoid errors, automating tasks, and generating bids and budgets

Bootcamps do not typically provide underlying construction knowledge but instead address the general categories Estimators should include in their projects. Still, some bootcamps do include modules on construction materials and tasks. Similarly, a construction estimation bootcamp without prerequisites might teach the calculations required for estimation or address price computation in more detail.

What most construction estimation bootcamps add, beyond the topics covered in separate short classes, are lessons and advice for career preparation. These bootcamps explain a Construction Estimator’s typical job search, employers, work tasks, and path for advancement. This guidance helps bootcamps produce career-ready graduates.

Building Plan Reading Short Class

Construction Estimators must be able to understand and derive detailed information from building plans, whether presented as digital models or traditional blueprints. A short class on reading building plans teaches students how these plans are created, what information they encode, and how to visualize a project from its plans. Most classes address multiple types of plans and their interrelationships, including floor plans, cross-sections, and subsystems like electrical and plumbing. A class specialized for Estimators will also address how to translate these plans into detailed materials lists, building stages, and schedules of tasks. Building plan classes are usually specific to one type of construction — residential, commercial, industrial, landscape, or civil — to focus their instruction on the plans and details particular to those projects.

Computer-Aided Design/Drafting (CAD) Short Class

Computer-Aided Design and Drafting programs support construction planning by helping users quickly create detailed building models and plans. These interactive images aid visualization and collaboration, record detailed designs, and generate plans to guide builders. CAD short classes teach students how to generate and read designs with these programs. While CAD classes typically focus on single programs, their lessons apply to other, similar programs. Popular CAD programs for architecture and construction include Autodesk AutoCAD, SketchUp, and MicroStation. Depending on its length, a short CAD class might focus solely on viewing and understanding designs, explain how to annotate and modify designs, or teach the program’s tools for building new designs. Some trainers divide these subjects into separate levels of instruction, starting with an introductory overview and adding increasingly complex tools with each class.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) Short Class

Building Information Model systems expand upon 3D modeling and CAD programs by specializing in construction design and enriching their models with detailed information on building stages and the materials, equipment, and labor needed for each component. BIM programs incorporate both pre-written and user-provided data modules and combine this information with designs. In addition to aiding collaborative design, these programs can automate planning tasks like takeoff, scheduling, budgeting, and detecting on-site conflicts. Popular BIM programs include Autodesk Revit and ArchiCAD. Short BIM classes teach students how to use one of these products, but the trained skills will translate to similar programs. 

Learn the Skills to Become a Construction Estimator at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop and the Visual Design and Construction Institute (VDCI) offer online classes that teach the skills Construction Estimators need. In addition to classes on construction estimation, their curricula include general construction skills and construction and visualization software like 3D modeling, Computer-Assisted Drafting (CAD), and Building Information Model (BIM) systems. For each class, students complete one or more portfolio-quality projects, receive a certificate of completion, and can retake the course within 1 year, if needed.

Students new to construction estimation should start with VDCI’s Construction Estimator Course, a self-paced course including video lessons, practice exercises, training projects, and supplemental reference materials. The course assumes no prior experience and explains the primary skills of a Construction Estimator: reading construction drawings, translating those plans into component lists, calculating component costs, and accounting for various other expenses. 

Another set of self-paced courses explains how to read construction documents, often called blueprints. Construction Estimators need to completely understand building plans in any format, physical or virtual, to accurately extract information for their estimates. VDCI’s Blueprint Reading Fundamentals Course Bundle includes courses on both residential and commercial construction, combined at a discounted rate. This bundle can also be combined with the Construction Estimator Course as a Blueprint Reading & Construction Estimating Course Bundle.

For those without previous construction experience, VCDI’s self-paced Construction Fundamentals Course Bundle provides a thorough introduction to the processes, systems, and materials of building construction through video lectures and active projects. This series of six class units covers site surveying and foundation work, steel and concrete building structures, the components of the building envelope (including walls, floors, and roofing), interior and finishing work, utility systems like electrical and plumbing, fire protection, and final cleanup steps. The bundle also includes a one hour, 1-on-1 mentoring session with an expert instructor.

Alongside programs specifically for construction estimation, Construction Estimators often use Building Information Modeling (BIM) software like Autodesk Revit to itemize the details of a construction project. BIM programs combine 2D and 3D modeling tools with informational resources representing materials, work stages, and other components. VDCI’s Revit Fundamentals Course Bundle combines an introduction to the program and BIM systems in general with an intermediate course that extends and expands students’ ability to create and read detailed building models. Students learn how to create a full-featured 3D building model, create and use 2D representations within that model, and generate architectural graphics, working building plans, and schedules that list material and labor requirements. These courses also address workflow design to improve efficiency in Revit. 

Like BIM, Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD) is also frequently used to visualize building projects, both to guide estimates and to collaborate with clients and colleagues. CAD programs like Autodesk AutoCAD create detailed visual and spatial representations that can depict buildings and construction sites. Construction estimation students will benefit most from VDCI’s Autodesk CAD Certification Bundle, a set of five self-paced classes that include an introduction to the program, an intermediate class explaining the creation of construction documents, two extended units building further construction document skills, and a class on smaller-scale detail drawings in CAD. This bundle is designed to prepare students for Autodesk Certified User in AutoCAD certification, and the course includes a voucher for the certification exam and a free exam retake if needed. Students also receive a 1-on-1 training session they can use for exam preparation or career advising.

Alternately, students prepared to pursue complete training in both CAD and BIM systems can combine both their certificate bundles into a single CAD/BIM Certificate Program. In addition to introductory and intermediate classes and two units of extended practice with construction documents for both programs, the combined program includes a professional-level capstone project, 120 hours of added elective classes (including advanced AutoCAD or specialized versions of Revit), and eight 1-on-1 mentoring sessions to address difficult topics or get help with career preparation.