Dubai: love it or loathe it?

"To tell you the truth, I absolutely hate it here," confesses a senior QS as we sit in his dark and deserted office in the heart of Dubai's half-built business district.

The spooky circumstances of our meeting are down to the death of Dubai's ruler (Sheikh Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum) yesterday. All businesses should be closed as a mark of respect, so, officially, we're not meant to be here. This is exactly the sort of quirk that could send you over the edge while working here, says my interviewee.

In the press, Dubai is invariably described in terms of shiny skyscrapers, ski slopes and superlatives. The pace of development is relentless, each project must be better than the last: the world's biggest shopping mall, the first underwater hotel and, naturally, the world's tallest building are all rapidly being built here.

But working life for QSs and project managers in Dubai is tougher than you might think. Peering through the gloom of his office, the senior QS says the fact is that all Dubai's projects are delayed. Contracts are anachronistic, the dispute resolution process is shaky, predicting costs is becoming harder and sourcing materials, manpower and equipment is a nightmare. The standard of architecture is also disappointing. He tells me one much-hyped new development looks like a south London council estate.

Yet he seems to have a love-hate relationship with Dubai: "The projects people work on here, you won't get anywhere else in the world." The draw of the place is undeniable. Where else could you build a ski resort in the middle of the desert or an artificial archipelago mirroring a map of the globe? All the big UK consultancies are here, surely with good reason. Most encouragingly of all, there are signs that conditions in Dubai's construction industry are improving.

But there is no escaping project delays, according to our senior QS. This is partly due to over-ambitious scheduling. One PM, Jonathan Toms, associate director for Mace in Dubai, says the pace of building here is three times that of the UK. His firm, which shuns contracting in the emirate, offering only project management, aims to build Jumeirah Beach Residence - a £900m development comprising 36 high-rise towers - in just two years. As we speed past the site, which occupies 1.7 km of coastline, in his swanky 4X4, he says the project is on schedule and due to be handed over in Spring 2006.

Another cause of delays is continual changes to the design. Several QSs tell me that half way through building a hotel, you can fully expect it to be switched to a residential scheme.

Projects also get held up due to logistical problems. For example, labour is cheap, so having your plumbers sitting around waiting for pipe to turn up is not seen as so much of a financial issue as it is in the UK.

Frustratingly, the emirate can be shut down without warning, as I am discovering first hand. The date of one of the two annual Eid holidays, for instance, is dependent on the sighting of the moon, so its exact timing is not known until the last minute.

All materials are under strain. Steel is the biggest one but last year, for three weeks contractors couldn’t get concrete

Mark Prior, regional managing director, EC Harris, Dubai

Acquiring materials can cause further headaches. In yet another darkened office, Mark Prior, regional managing director for EC Harris, says: "All materials are under strain. Steel is the biggest one but last year, for three weeks contractors couldn't get concrete. Suppliers were giving quotes valid for just 10 days and then they would renege if they got a better offer."

Inevitably, disputes crop up in these circumstances and Dubai's resolution "system" can take some getting used to. The main developers in Dubai were set up by the government, complete with land grants, and operate quasi-independently while locked in fierce competition with each other.

Three clients dominate: Dubai Properties, Emaar and Nakheel. Mediation doesn't exist. Arbitration happens in rare cases if both parties agree to it and, extremely rarely, a case goes to court. George Grant, Currie & Brown's regional director, says: "We work on the basis that you never fall out with a client. Although there is a court process in Dubai, very few claims get that far."

Instead, I am told disputes are resolved behind closed doors. One PM says: "If there's a dispute, some people will have coffee together, some land will change hands and the issue will simply go away."

Laing O'Rourke is understood to be facing major losses on its contract for Dubai Airport partly because the aviation authority isn't paying claims. But the word in the market is that the dispute will be sorted out quietly, away from the courts. If there is one thing the regime in Dubai hates, it's bad publicity.

Laing O'Rourke's work on Terminal 3 highlights another challenge of Dubai's building industry. Part of the loss the firm is facing is because since it won the £350m contract to build the terminal's substructure in August 2003, local cement prices have risen 50% and steel has doubled in price.

Neil Taylor, a director at Davis Langdon in Dubai, meets me at my hotel in shorts and t-shirt, since we are not meant to be working today. He says it's getting harder to predict costs. "In the last two years steel, cement and copper have been subject to volatility not seen here in the ten years previous. It's settled down in the last six months but crystal ball gazing has become harder for QSs."

To make matters worse, the majority of construction contracts here are based on fixed prices. "The rule is that you have lump sum contracts with no provision for fluctuations in materials prices," says Grant. Small wonder Mace doesn't get involved in contracting over here.

The rule is that you have lump sum contracts with no provision for fluctuations in materials prices

George Grant, Currie & Brown, Dubai

QSs and PMs tendering for work face challenges of their own, according to Grant: "With most consultancy contracts, the lowest price will win… Contracts are based on ancient forms, such as FIDIC (International Federation of Consulting Engineers)." There is little transparency, says David Stapleton, managing QS in Dubai for Faithful & Gould: "No one ever finds out what other people tendered and there are no thank you notes for tendering for a job if you don't get it."

Sustainability is paid mere lip service, says one QS. Since Dubai's archipelagos have been under construction - one in the shape of the globe and three in the shape of humungous palm trees - there have been reports of dead fish washing up on the shores of another emirate, Sharjah. It seems that little heed is being paid to warnings of "imminent ecological disaster" in local daily newspaper Gulf News and the UK's Independent.

The approach to development is similarly dog-eat-dog. Building work carries on 24 hours a day, largely performed by armies of Indian labourers who live in "labour camps" and send their earnings to families back home. There is no minimum wage or national insurance. "You can do your piling in the middle of the night, even if it's next door to a residential block," says Prior, whose gritted teeth suggest he's been on the wrong end of this working practice a few times.

Neither does anything appear to curtail the density of buildings. Jumeirah Beach Residence will put the beach in the shade until mid-morning and is already casting its considerable shadow over the smart buildings of another Mace job, the recently finished Dubai Marina, whose new residents were just starting to enjoy the sun.

Yet many of these apparent downsides can be seen as part of Dubai's appeal. The ability to run sites around the clock is why projects are built in a third of the time taken in the UK. This makes working life pretty exhilarating and means consultants can rack up impressive CVs in double quick time.

Young people are given big responsibilities early on in their careers in Dubai. Stapleton says running a single project here is like running a small office in the UK. He says a typical team on a large project in Dubai would comprise a couple of chief QSs, five senior QSs and eight more junior QSs.

The outlandishness of the projects also injects a fair amount of excitement into the market. There is a palpable buzz at one Mace office, which is project managing the Aqua Dunya scheme. The £1bn project comprises an enormous boat containing a 300-bed hotel and a full-scale theme park thrown in for good measure.

True, some of Dubai's buildings have been criticised for their lack of sophistication. But big name architects are appearing on the scene, suggesting some classy projects are coming online. For example, Foster and Partners is designing a £600m, 80-storey office and residential tower, the Index Building, on which Currie & Brown is the QS.

You learn to work in a different way and to bite your tongue at times

Jonathan Toms, associate director, Mace, Dubai

The hectic pace also seems to take the sting out of project delays; even projects that are behind schedule are still being constructed at break-neck speed. The informal approach to dispute resolution helps smooth the way here too. It's a regime where "you know where you stand", says Davis Langdon's Taylor, adding there are no government enquiries or consultations to slow things down.

The whole market has an informal air despite the intensity of the workload. A succession of QSs, one with sunglasses perched on his head, tell me the atmosphere is very much work hard, play hard.

But if an informal approach to disputes puts you off the industry is in fact coming more into line with the UK in this area. It's all part of Dubai's transformation into a "world city", says Currie & Brown's Grant. "More people here are buying into a more professional approach and adopting international practices and because there's so much work around, people are saying they want to get paid for what they're doing."

Again, outside influences are playing a part, with dispute resolution specialists such as Knowles and High Point Rendel setting up shop in the region.

Contracts, too, are becoming more sophisticated, with standard forms being re-written. This is due to the growing complexity of projects, according to Grant, which is demanding large international firms whose expertise is sufficiently sought-after for them to command favourable terms.

In a further sign of increasing market stability, all the QSs and PMs I meet are convinced the current boom is not a bubble and that the frantic building activity of the present will last another 10 to 15 years, after which it will settle down to a steadier London-style pace. Grant says Currie & Brown is looking at staying for at least 30 to 40 years.

Toms has been in Dubai for four years. He says: "For me, coming here was an opportunity to get involved in something exciting. You learn to work in a different way and to bite your tongue at times, but the market here is changing and maturing very quickly."

Even the gloomier senior QS in his abandoned office admits he's planning to stick around for at least another two years. As we step out of his building into the bright sunshine, he concedes that, love it or loathe it, Dubai is an intriguing city.