I want to be a building surveyor

I want to be a building surveyor

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Discussion

BigGingerBob

Original Poster:

1,700 posts

189 months

Monday 25th July 2016
quotequote all
Good afternoon,

I am currently an estate agent, I have a (not very good) mechanical engineering degree and I have always had a technical interest in whatever I am working with.
Anyway, I feel that estate agency isn't the full career for me and I really want to be a building surveyor, I have done for a couple of years.
But... how would I go about this? I live with my parter who is self employed so I absolutely cannot take time off to study, we need the money my job brings in and many companies require degrees (the jobs on job websites do anyway).
I managed to speak with a surveyor for a couple of minutes and he said that you didn't need a surveying degree but that's as far as the conversation got as we had to part ways.
Are there any surveyors here who could advise?

Cheers,

Bob

21TonyK

11,494 posts

208 months

Monday 25th July 2016
quotequote all
http://www.rics.org/uk/the-profession/

It's something my daughter looked at. No real option I am aware of other than a RICs accredited degree.

http://www.ricscourses.org/Course/#


Slagathore

5,808 posts

191 months

Monday 25th July 2016
quotequote all
I think it's pretty hard to get into without a degree and getting RICS accredited.

I did an HNC a while back with the intention of going into quantity surveying, but I absolutely hated the module and ended up taking more of an interest in building surveying. I didn't, however, go on to uni to get a degree in building surveying.

You may be able to work something with part-time learning, but it's still expensive, around £3k for a part time HNC and then the university I was looking at for the doing the part time degree was still £7k a year in fees and 3 years of study.

I wouldn't have thought you'd get far in the field without being RICS accredited.

You may get lucky and find a company that would sponsor you through a degree, but I think they usually prefer to take on school leavers and put them through a BTEC, HNC and then a degree. That's what a few friends of mine have done.

Thermobaric

725 posts

119 months

Tuesday 26th July 2016
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I did a degree in building surveying and worked at a building surveyors practice for a while. I found the majority of what I did was AutoCAD. 10% doing the actual drawings, 90% amending drawings for clients that couldn't make up their mind what they wanted heh.

I'd say get yourself some AutoCAD training books and teach yourself. Probably lots of training tutorials on YouTube too like most stuff.

That's probably your easiest way in without a degree. Having at least one useful skill to get you in the door and hopefully they'll let you pick up other stuff as you go along.

BigGingerBob

Original Poster:

1,700 posts

189 months

Monday 22nd August 2016
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Evening all, I've just been accepted for a Masters degree course for Building Surveying!
It's with UCEM and it's a RICS accredited course. Good stuff.

21TonyK

11,494 posts

208 months

Monday 22nd August 2016
quotequote all
BigGingerBob said:
Evening all, I've just been accepted for a Masters degree course for Building Surveying!
It's with UCEM and it's a RICS accredited course. Good stuff.
Best of luck and well done for making a positive move towards what you want.

Bikesalot

1,833 posts

157 months

Wednesday 24th August 2016
quotequote all
BigGingerBob said:
Evening all, I've just been accepted for a Masters degree course for Building Surveying!
It's with UCEM and it's a RICS accredited course. Good stuff.
Studying with UCEM is a great experience. I'm currently doing a course with them

BigGingerBob

Original Poster:

1,700 posts

189 months

Wednesday 24th August 2016
quotequote all
Bikesalot said:
BigGingerBob said:
Evening all, I've just been accepted for a Masters degree course for Building Surveying!
It's with UCEM and it's a RICS accredited course. Good stuff.
Studying with UCEM is a great experience. I'm currently doing a course with them
That's great news, do you have any more info about them and what the courses are like?

Bikesalot

1,833 posts

157 months

Thursday 25th August 2016
quotequote all
For me, it's been 8 years out of education in terms of writing essays and committing time to serious study.

The course content is in depth and very thorough, they will give you study papers and a whole online library of books, articles, RICS 'stuff'

The course i'm doing is split between written assignments of circa 3000 words and online assessments.
It's an enjoyable course with lots of help from the tutors if needed, they want you to pass but equally you've got to want to pass and put the time and effort in.

CornishRob

256 posts

133 months

Saturday 27th August 2016
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I just had a look and I have a RICs accredited degree. It's not related to building surveying, but is related to offshore surveying.

Could i for example, or anyone else with a RICs degree go into building surveying if they wanted too even if their degree wasn't 100% relevant, like a building surveying degree.

Obviously when I say go into building surveying, I mean start on some sort of training scheme?

Just curious.

Trigbert

124 posts

129 months

Saturday 27th August 2016
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I let my RICS membership lapse many years ago but don't think the process has changed too much. Basically once you have accredited qualifications you then need to complete a professional competency assessment. Basically show relevant experience in the discipline you are enrolling for over a period of time. So for example you can't work as an estate agent and enrol as a chartered building surveyor without being able to demonstrate competence.

This is current guidance http://www.rics.org/uk/join/student/from-student-t...
Not changed that much since my day.
I do recall becoming a student member first which gives access to the meetings etc while training. Sure someone has more recent experience than me.

Sometimes regret letting it lapse but not much call for it in IT smile