What is the role of a claims consultant?
Prepares, values, reviews or defends claims under a construction contract, building the contractual basis, the evidence and the figures, and supporting the parties in negotiation and adjudication. Not a lawyer, and, on this site, not a delay analyst.
Updated: 15 September 2026. By Jack Butler-Kettle, Quantity Surveyor & Claims Consultant.
The answer
A claims consultant does the work that turns a grievance into a claim the other side has to answer, or a claim received into a reasoned response. That means reading the contract to establish the basis and the notice requirements, assembling the records into a chronology and an evidence index, calculating the amount head by head from those records, writing the claim or the response so that it can be followed by a stranger, and supporting the client through negotiation, adjudication or the account. Some consultants also do delay analysis, which is the programme side; some are also expert witnesses. What a claims consultant does not do is give legal advice on rights, remedies or proceedings, which belongs to a solicitor, and a good one says so at the point the question turns legal. This practice covers the money side only, having applied for payment on one side and assessed it on the other, and works alongside the solicitor or delay analyst where the dispute needs them.
Example
The situation
A main contractor receives a £310,000 loss and expense claim from a subcontractor and brings in a claims consultant to test it before any assessment goes back across the table.
What happens
- The consultant tests the basis of the claim against the subcontract.
- The chronology is checked against the site records.
- Each head is recomputed from the subcontractor's own returns and invoices.
- What is supported, what is duplicated and what is unproven is identified.
- The assessment is drafted with the reasons for each finding.
The outcome
The main contractor's assessment of the £310,000 goes back with each head tested and its reasons stated.
For the subcontractor, the same consultant would have built the claim so that those tests were passed before it was sent.
Start with the Claims & Disputes overview or the pre-claim stress test if you have a position and want it tested.