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Quantity Surveyor

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Are you great with a budget? Do you live for organisation? If you want to put your skills to good use and oversee construction projects, a career as a quantity surveyor could be perfect for you.

Are you interested in a career as a quantity surveyor? Explore the current jobs in energy and infrastructure available to you right now.

What does a quantity surveyor do?

Quantity surveyors take responsibility for the overall smooth running of construction projects. Here is what you might expect to do as a quantity surveyor:

  • Set budgets by looking over the cost of materials, the estimated time of construction and other factors which impact the cost of a project
  • Discuss budgets with contractors and other staff on the building site
  • Look over an architect’s plans, seeing the overall concept for a building
  • Prepare documents. This includes tax forms for the construction, contracts for any staff that the company onboard and financial statements
  • Report on the progress of the construction to clients
  • Update timelines and budgets

Quantity surveyor career path

Making sure there is a great career path in any job you choose is a great way to make sure you’re satisfied with your progression throughout your working life. Here is the career path associated with quantity surveyors:

Entry-level

At the beginning of your career, you work as a junior quantity surveyor. This job involves assisting more senior members of the team but also working on your own projects. You might manage contracts and monitor the progress and success of the project. Getting into the role often requires some years of prior experience in a construction related job if you don’t have the direct qualifications that you need to do the job.

Career progression

When you progress to a mid-level quantity surveyor you’re given responsibility for more complex or larger projects. You’ve gained the experience to work alone but often have the opportunity to seek assistance from other members of the team.

A senior quantity surveyor role is similar to the less senior versions. The distinction is that you’re responsible for training new staff members and receive the most complex work.

Future career

If you decide to, you could progress to a more managerial role as a commercial manager. In this role, you speak to new clients and show them the great work you can do so you can build the client base and increase the size of the business. You might also oversee the work of the quantity surveying team.

Quantity surveyor salaries

You have the opportunity to work your way up in a company as a quantity surveyor. The specific salary that you earn depends on the size of the company and its geographical location. Here are the salaries that you might expect at each level of the work:

  • Entry-level positions like junior quantity surveyor earn an average of £23,000 per year.
  • Mid-level quantity surveyors earn between £30,000 and £55,000 per year
  • Senior quantity surveyors earn an average of £60,000 per year which could potentially raise to £80,000 per year.

Qualifications and training 

Are you invested in the quantity surveyor career path? Making sure you have the right qualifications and experience is important for impressing any hiring manager and showing them that you’re right for the job. Here is the education you need to succeed in your quantity surveyor applications:

Education

A great way to become qualified to be a quantity surveyor is to get an accredited degree from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). You could choose an undergraduate degree in quantity surveying, construction engineering, or management. These degrees give you relevant skills and experience to do the job to a high level. You can find RICS accredited courses with the RICS course search tool. 

If your undergraduate degree is in a different subject to quantity surveying or construction engineering, you can do a postgraduate conversion course. You can also use the RICS course search tool to find relevant courses.

If you’re not interested in going down the degree path, you can do an apprenticeship. Your apprenticeship could be as a surveying technician. In an apprenticeship over a degree, you’ll get more hands-on and practical experience whilst saving money as some internships offer you a modest salary for the work you do. However, reaching the goal of becoming a quantity surveyor is often not as easy with an apprenticeship as with a degree as you need some years of work experience first. If you’re interested in apprenticeships, you can use the government’s apprenticeship search tool to find out what’s available to you right now.

Work experience

If you’re interested in becoming a quantity surveyor but want to skip the degree or apprenticeship education, you can work your way up to entering the job. To become a quantity surveyor without specific education, you need around 5-10 years of experience in construction. This could be as a builder, contractor or other relevant role. You need this amount of experience so you can accurately estimate the cost of items and know the process of building and understand the building process. 

Professional qualifications

If you choose to, you can register to become a chartered surveyor with RICS. This gives you a level of professional status and perhaps helps you stand out amongst other quantity surveyors.

Quantity surveyor skills

Alongside the relevant education, having the right skills helps you do the job of a quantity surveyor well. Here are the skills that you need to succeed:

Hard skills

  • Knowledge of materials. You need to understand the range of materials available, the positives and negatives of using them in construction and the general costs associated with using them.
  • Maths and finance. Being good at maths helps you figure out the quantities of materials you need and the general price that this might come to. This also helps you set budgets and understand where cutbacks can be made.

Soft skills

  • Organisation. You need great organisational skills to be a quantity surveyor. This helps you keep on track of all the work you need to do, making sure all the necessary materials have been purchased and all the relevant documentation has been sent off so that there are no delays to the building works.
  • Negotiation. Quantity surveyors need to do some negotiation as part of the work. This might be negotiating budgets with contractors, architects and clients, discussing the quantity and price of materials or even looking into areas of the planning applications.
  • Communication. You need great communication skills so you can discuss with your colleagues exactly what they need to do, whether this is filling out a relevant form or submitting reports on budgets and timelines. To work well, you need to maintain positive working relationships with everyone in the team and communicating well is a good step towards this.

Pros and cons of being a quantity surveyor

Are you intrigued by the idea of being a quantity surveyor? Even the best and most ideal jobs have positives and negatives that are integral to doing the job. To make sure it’s the right career for you before you commit to a working life as a quantity surveyor, here is what you should consider:

Pros

  • Being a quantity surveyor can offer a great salary.
  • You could work on large and interesting projects.
  • If you’re working as a consultant, you can often choose to work on the projects which interest you the most.
  • You work on new projects which makes work interesting because you have a new challenge to deal with.

Cons

  • Construction projects can take a long time and being stuck on a project which you don’t like can make work less fun.
  • There might be travel involved to get to a building site which can make your working day even longer if you’re commuting. If you’re temporarily living near the site, this can lead to a more difficult home life.

Work-life balance of a quantity surveyor 

Most quantity surveyors work standard office hours of 9am to 5pm on Monday to Friday. You may do some overtime work during more complex projects or when you have deadlines. 

You could be employed by many different types of organisations as a quantity surveyor. This could be a consultancy firm where the firm finds work for you to do. You could work for an architect as part of an in-house team that they offer to clients. You may even work for a property development firm where you and your team present a full workforce to clients.

Your working life is primarily in an office because of the high quantity of administration tasks that you do on a daily basis. Some of your work is on the construction site, particularly if you have to talk to contractors and builders on a regular basis. 

Typical employers hiring quantity surveyors

Many types of organisations hire quantity surveyors, so whether you work in a consultancy firm or architect’s office is entirely up to your preference. Here are some of the typical employers that you could work for in quantity surveying:

Related jobs to quantity surveyor

More information

Has life as a quantity surveyor sparked your interest? Explore the energy and infrastructure internships available now. 

If you want to find out more about working as a quantity surveyor, learn about Bright Network member Scott and his experience as a quantity surveyor at the Kier Group.

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