Your career as a finishing foreperson means you will be in charge of ensuring work is completed to specification, on time and in budget. Let’s have a look at what a career as a finishing foreperson actually involves and where your career can take you.
Working as a Finishing Foreperson
A finishing foreperson performs vital supervisory, instructional and management roles on any construction site. In your career, you will need to have a keen eye for detail and very high standards. Just some of your roles would include:
- Attending weekly management meetings and generating reports
- Compiling labour allocation schedules for staff and contracted personnel
- Assisting with the control and direction of machinery on site
- Coordinating the work done by contractors
- Dealing with any work related disputes on site
- Having a detailed knowledge of health and safety on site and ensuring that health and safety protocols are adhered to
- Providing leadership and direction
- Liasing with other management and stakeholders and keeping them appraised of progress.
Career Path
The work of a finishing foreperson is paramount in terms of overall work completion, and in your career as a finishing foreperson you need to liaise with many different positions including the following to name but a few:
- Foreperson
- Site manager
- Bricklayer
- Plumber Electrician
- Heavy machinery operator
- Architect
- Civil engineer
- Project engineer
- Structural engineer
- Electrical engineer
- Quantity surveyor
- Purchaser
- Estimator
- Demolition foreman
- Finance manager
- Health and Safety
- HSE Officer
- Documents controller
- Site clerk
Professional qualifications
Qualifications for this position vary, as much of it in order to be successful is down to experience and on the job learning. However for your career as a finishing foreperson you will need to relevant Health & Safety training and to ensure you are SafePass accredited. Qualifications in any relevant construction trades or engineering and elements such as management or technology skills will also be of significant benefit in your career. Having good communication skills and an approachable manner, coupled with an easy to identify leadership style will also make your role work well within the busy demands of a construction project.
How your Career can Develop
Your career as a finishing foreperson will develop significantly depending on successful experience. A successful career as a finishing foreperson can see you specialising in particular areas of site management and overall site management itself. Having a detailed knowledge of some of the most common construction trends will help you identify any issues both early and swiftly. Continuous Professional Development is essential in order to make sure you keep abreast of constantly evolving technology in the areas of construction and engineering.