What a graduate job as a building surveyor involves
Building surveyors are professional consultants who provide technical advice for the construction and property industries. As such, the work of a building surveyor is incredibly varied and often straddles the divide between construction professionals and general practice surveyors. You can expect to work on multiple projects at a time and to split your time between your office and clients’ properties.
The core surveying roles
A building surveyor’s work covers the following aspects:
Building surveys
Building surveyors conduct building surveys on freehold and leasehold properties. This is essentially an inspection of a property and provides information on the property’s construction, any building defects and the possible costs of repairs. It does not include property valuation.
Dilapidations
This concerns buildings in need of repair where a tenant is responsible for keeping a building in repair during their lease term. Claims are usually made by a landlord during or at the end of the lease and a building surveyor will usually inspect the building and value the cost of repairs and either have the works carried out or negotiate with the landlord to agree a financial settlement. This area is governed by various statutes and case law and a good knowledge of these is vital.
Building works
On those construction projects that don’t require an architect’s expertise but still need the input of a building professional, a building surveyor will design and specify the works. They may also act as project manager and administer the contracts. Examples of these types of project include office refurbishments and small extensions. On larger construction projects, they may monitor a project’s progress and quality on behalf of the client.
Party walls
Building surveyors agree party wall awards; that is, they advise building owners over altering or repairing a wall, floor or ceiling shared with another property or building on a boundary shared by an adjoining property.
Miscellaneous work
Other instructions can include: valuing a building’s reinstatement cost for insurance purposes; producing plans and schedules of conditions of buildings; and monitoring the health and safety aspects of constructions works.
Building surveyors' roles on a project team
With such a varied range of responsibilities, building surveyors can be involved during any part of a construction project or building’s lifecycle. At the start of the project, they may be involved with monitoring a project’s development on behalf of an organisation providing the funding; during construction, they might agree party wall awards. Building surveys, refurbishment projects and dilapidations work are completed on operational buildings. Keeping up to date with the latest legislation and construction techniques is a vital part of the job at all stages of the lifecycle.
Building surveyors can also play a key part in ensuring buildings are sustainable. As pressure to be environmentally friendly increases, building surveyors advise on best practices: they consider how to increase sustainability ratings alongside ensuring work meets sustainable guidelines.
High-tech tools to help with the job
As a building surveyor you're likely to use high-tech tools to improve your ability to do your job. Many surveyors use a portable electronic laser system that measures buildings and draws them as they walk round. The system fires a laser beam from one wall to the other, instantly computing the distance and storing it, or adding it to a calculation for the area or volume of a space. The resulting electronic plans are interactive with embedded pictures and voice messages that can be instantly recalled.
All this data can be exported to spreadsheets, which makes estimating much easier. The laser system is used with a mini tablet computer that runs computer-aided-drafting (CAD) software called PowerCAD SiteMaster. This is as powerful as a full office CAD station but in the size of an A4 filofax and has a touch screen instead of a keyboard.
Getting a graduate job
Most firms recognise that they need to maintain skills levels in their organisation and so will be hiring this year, but in much fewer numbers than previously. Gaining work experience with some of the big firms may prove a useful ‘way in’, as recruiters are likely to continue their practice of recruiting from their work experience schemes. If you don’t gain a position this year, consider doing some construction-related work experience with a charity to boost your CV for the next recruitment cycle.
Career routes for building surveyors
Graduates start out by assisting more experienced colleagues on a full range of instructions, such as building inspections, while working towards chartered status. As they gain more experience, they’ll take the lead on smaller instructions. While all employers should ensure that graduates are exposed to a broad variety of work to pass the APC, some employers will place graduates within specialist teams from the beginning. Once surveyors become chartered, they can become a consultant, responsible for a variety of work. Some will choose to specialise in an area such as sustainability, while others will move into project management or work for a property owner maintaining a portfolio of buildings. Self-employment is an option for experienced surveyors.
The key to success
Successful surveyors are able to maintain an understanding of clients’ needs, while interpreting the effect of changes in legislation and best practice; they combine commercial awareness and an understanding of construction. This is a career for multi-taskers: you will be working on a high number of projects simultaneously but the variety of work means you’ll find something of interest every day.
James Pearce, MRICS, is an associate director – building consultancy at BNP Paribas Real Estate. He has a BSc in building surveying from Reading University and has been working in the sector for six years.
