Cost Control Director

Job Title: Cost Control Director
Location: Dubai, UAE
Department: Cost Control
Reporting To: General Manager / Managing Director

Job Summary:
Responsible for establishing, leading, and maintaining a robust cost control framework across all building projects executed by the company. The role ensures accurate forecasting, monitoring, and reporting of project costs from award to final account, providing real-time cost intelligence for executive decision-making. Supervise all cost control managers and engineers, standardize cost reporting practices, and ensure actual project expenditures align with the approved budgets, contractual baselines, and corporate financial targets.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and manage the cost control function across all projects, ensuring accurate cost tracking, variance analysis, and cost forecasting at all project stages.
• Develop, implement, and continuously improve company-wide cost control procedures, coding structures, and reporting templates aligned with corporate and project requirements.
• Review and approve project cost budgets and cash flow forecasts, ensuring alignment with tendered values, contractual baselines, and work breakdown structures (WBS).
• Monitor cost performance indicators for each project, identify variances, and initiate corrective measures in coordination with Project Directors, Project Managers, and the Commercial Department.
• Ensure all cost reports accurately capture committed costs, actual expenditures, earned value (EV), and forecasts to complete (ETC / EAC).
• Integrate cost data with planning and scheduling systems to support earned value management (EVM) and performance reporting.
• Review and validate monthly cost reports from project cost control teams, ensuring accuracy, consistency, and completeness before submission to management.
• Evaluate cost trends and identify risks or opportunities that could affect overall project profitability, recommend mitigation or optimization strategies.
• Collaborate closely with the Commercial and Contracts Director to ensure consistent interpretation of cost data, contract value adjustments, and financial exposure.
• Establish and maintain cost databases, benchmarks, and unit rate libraries to support future project estimates and tender validations.
• Monitor productivity and resource utilization rates across trades and disciplines, linking actual performance to cost performance indices (CPI).
• Conduct cost-to-complete and cash flow projection reviews for each ongoing project on a periodic basis, validating accuracy against actual progress.
• Coordinate with procurement, planning, and finance departments to ensure full alignment between cost commitments, procurement packages, and accounting systems.
• Supervise the preparation of consolidated corporate cost dashboards and executive summaries for management review.
• Lead post-project cost reviews to analyze cost performance, identify variances, and feed lessons learned into future budgeting and estimation processes.
• Develop KPIs for cost control teams and establish measurable performance indicators for cost predictability, reporting accuracy, and control effectiveness.
• Support management in strategic financial decision-making by providing reliable cost intelligence, scenario analysis, and forecasting accuracy reports.