When you want to hire a BIM drafter temporarily, the question behind it is almost always the same: can someone help out for as long as the peak lasts, without your firm being tied to those costs afterwards? The answer is yes. We supply drafting capacity for the period you need it, and as soon as the volume drops, we scale back down.
No open-ended contract is involved and no payroll costs keep running in a quiet month. We respond to an enquiry within 1 to 2 working days, and once we have enough information we can get started.
All our people have more than ten years of CAD experience, so nobody needs to learn the trade on the job. We draft and model, we do not do engineering, and we work to the drawing conventions you already use in-house. What remains is exactly what a head of the drawing office looks for in a period like this: sheets that are correct and a schedule that stays achievable. You decide how long the engagement runs, because we do not apply a minimum term.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
Who hires a BIM drafter temporarily
Requests come to us from engineering firms, architectural practices, contractors and manufacturers, as well as from other companies with technical drafting in-house. The person who calls is usually a manager, a team leader or the owner, someone who is directly responsible for the schedule. The problem on the table is rarely about the content. Your own team is technically perfectly capable of the work, but the hours have run out. A contractor approaching handover suddenly has to complete an as-built file while the drafters are already working on the next phase of construction. An architectural practice gets two projects that overlap and cannot turn down the second.
A manufacturer is faced with a series of variants that each require drafting work and eat up an engineer's diary. In greenhouse construction we see piping schematics in which the same valve in 90 and 110 appears over and over again, which adds up to hours of manual work nobody enjoys. In all these cases the problem is temporary by nature, which is why a temporary solution fits better than a vacancy. If you are considering whether to hire a BIM drafter temporarily, you often look first at an agency route or a freelancer.
We offer a third option: a team that takes over the work package, including checking. Our clients are based in the Netherlands and that is where our focus lies, so communication runs without time differences or detours. What these clients have in common is that they can do the work themselves, but do not have the weeks to do it. That calls for capacity that joins in and disappears again once the pressure is off. We started this service last year because a client asked for it for exactly that reason.
Scaling up when you hire drafters temporarily
We have a large, flexible team and scale up or down per project, with as many drafters as the work requires. These people are already in place, so scaling up adds no extra lead time and no selection round. When it is urgent, we add someone immediately rather than waiting until next month. If the volume drops, we reduce the team and you pay nothing for capacity that sits idle. That is the practical difference from taking someone on permanently, where the costs keep running even when the order book is briefly thin.
If someone drops out along the way through illness or holiday, we replace them so the drafting simply continues. That replacement works within the same standard and the same template, because all drafters follow the conventions of that project. The project knowledge stays with Sam, our team leader, so it is not lost when the team composition changes. For a head of the drawing office, that means a period in which the schedule does not depend on a single person. We only deploy people with more than ten years of CAD experience, so any familiarisation is limited to the project, not the trade.
Combined, the core of the team has around twenty-five years of experience. How many drafters make sense and when is something we decide together in our meetings, and we adjust it as soon as the schedule shifts. For a peak lasting a few weeks, we often put more people on at the start and then scale down. On a longer project we keep the team stable instead, because continuity across the set then matters more than speed.
No ongoing payroll costs and no idle staff once the peak is over. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work simply carries on.
The cost of hiring a drafter temporarily
Both hourly and fixed-price project billing are possible, and we agree the form together. For a temporary engagement the choice is often an hourly basis, simply because the size of a peak is rarely fixed in advance. If the package is clearly defined, for example a fixed number of sheets that need a revision round, a fixed project fee makes more sense. We only bill genuine working hours. If someone steps away for five minutes to get a coffee, the clock stops, and that is not a nice turn of phrase but simply how we track time. We do not have a prepaid hours card or a monthly hours subscription, so there is no sum set aside for hours nobody uses. What keeps costs down most in practice is the quality of what you supply. Complete documents and documented CAD standards save time spent sorting things out, and repetition in the set can be handled with parametric families that we build once.
Messy source material works the other way, because time goes into figuring out exactly what is there. You pay no ongoing payroll costs and nothing during illness or holidays of our people. If you compare the option to hire a BIM drafter temporarily with a permanent appointment, that is where most of the difference lies. We base an estimate on the documents, not on gut feeling. If you supply a small part first, both sides can see within a week what the pace is. After that, the rest of the period can be estimated far more accurately.
Meetings and point of contact during temporary drafting work
Barry, our project manager, is usually the first point of contact for a new enquiry. Once things get technical, Sam takes over and remains the permanent contact throughout the project. You therefore deal with one line of communication rather than different drafters, which matters all the more with a temporary engagement because time for coordination is limited. Day-to-day coordination runs through email, phone and meetings.
We agree the rhythm at the start: during a short, busy period we often meet every two days, while on a calmer project weekly is enough. We deliver in stages, collect feedback, make adjustments and carry on, so that your project lead can steer along the way rather than at the end.
Files go back and forth by email. On larger projects, such as greenhouse construction, we use software that you can log into to follow progress yourself. For standalone AutoCAD drafting we stick to delivery by email, because an extra system adds nothing for a short job. The work itself is done entirely remotely from our own office, in our own environment and with our own licences. You are welcome to visit and we also come to you, but the work itself stays remote.
If you want to hire a BIM drafter temporarily without freeing up workstations, your own infrastructure remains untouched. On completion we hand over the source files, so your drawing office can carry on with them without us. Any families or templates we build during the period therefore remain usable within your firm. The intellectual property of that material belongs to you.
Frequently asked questions about hiring a BIM drafter temporarily
Let us take on your temporary BIM drafting
Send us your documents and drawing conventions and we will let you know within one to two working days what we can take on and when.