Building Surveying

Building surveyors inspect, diagnose and advise on the condition of buildings - what's wrong with them, what it would cost to fix, and how they can be altered, extended or refurbished. They work for property owners, landlords, tenants, developers, housing associations, councils and insurers, producing survey reports, specifying repair and refurbishment works, and often managing those works through to completion. It's a mix of site visits with a ladder and a damp meter, and desk work writing reports and drawing up contract documents.

Starting salary: £25k–£32k
Live graduate jobs: 16 open now
Main way in: The most common route is a RICS-accredited degree in Building…
They usually ask for: A RICS-accredited degree, or any degree plus an accredited…

Approximate graduate salary

Typically around £25,000–£32,000 to start for a graduate surveyor, with London and large commercial practices at the upper end and smaller regional or public sector employers lower. Pay usually rises noticeably on achieving chartered status. This varies widely by employer, sector and location and should be treated as a rough guide only.

What you'd actually do

Visiting buildings to inspect them - climbing into roof voids, checking for damp, cracking, defective render, failed flat roofs and so on - and taking photographs and notes that will become a written report
Writing condition reports and building surveys for clients buying, leasing or managing a property, explaining defects in plain terms and giving a view on urgency and likely cost
Putting together schedules of work or specifications: a detailed written list of exactly what a contractor must do on a repair or refurbishment job, used to get prices and control quality
Running small to medium projects as contract administrator - chairing site progress meetings, inspecting work, certifying payments to contractors, dealing with delays and variations

Show 3 more

Dilapidations work: assessing whether a commercial tenant has met their repair obligations at the end of a lease, pricing the breaches and negotiating a settlement between landlord and tenant
Preparing drawings and planning or building regulations applications for extensions and alterations, often using CAD or measured survey software
Writing up chargeable time, chasing fee invoices and keeping an Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) diary of experience towards chartership

How graduates get in

The most common route is a RICS-accredited degree in Building Surveying (BSc) followed by a graduate surveyor job and the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) to become chartered (MRICS). Accredited courses are widely available at UK universities.
Graduate schemes at private practice surveying firms, developers, housing associations, local authorities, the NHS estates teams and central government property bodies - these normally include structured APC support, a counsellor and study leave.
Conversion route: a non-cognate degree (any subject) plus an RICS-accredited postgraduate conversion MSc in Building Surveying, often done part-time while employed. This is a well-trodden path and employers are generally comfortable with it.
Degree apprenticeship in Chartered Surveying - you work from day one and the employer funds the degree. Increasingly common and a realistic alternative to the university-first route, though applications are to individual employers rather than through UCAS.

Show 2 more

Direct entry from a related construction background (architectural technology, construction management, a building surveying HND plus experience) with the MSc or RICS's experience-based assessment routes used to reach chartership. Less common for graduates but normal mid-career.
Summer placements and sandwich-year placements are the single most useful thing a student can do - many graduate roles go to people the firm has already had on placement.

What employers ask for

A RICS-accredited degree, or any degree plus an accredited conversion MSc. Subject matters less than accreditation - history and geography graduates do convert in. Without accreditation at some point you cannot sit the APC.
A 2:1 is the common ask at larger firms and graduate schemes, but plenty of smaller practices and public sector employers will take a 2:2 with good placement experience. This varies a lot.
A full UK driving licence and access to a car is frequently required or strongly preferred, because the job involves travelling between sites. Some London-based roles are an exception.
Willingness to commit to the APC - typically around two years of structured, logged experience after graduating, ending in a written submission and a panel interview. Employers expect you to take this seriously from day one.

Show 2 more

Some practical exposure to construction: a placement, site work, a family trade background, or even shadowing. Not mandatory but it shows you understand what a building site is actually like.
Basic comfort with heights, ladders, confined spaces and dirty buildings - plus CSCS card and site safety training, which employers usually arrange.

Skills that matter

Building pathology - understanding how and why buildings fail

The core of the job is looking at a crack or a damp patch and working out the cause, not just the symptom, because the diagnosis determines the repair and your client's money.

Clear, defensible report writing

Your report is the product the client pays for and the document you could be held to if something was missed, so it has to be precise, evidenced and readable by a non-expert.

Cost awareness and estimating

Clients always want to know roughly what a defect or scheme will cost, and you need a reasonable feel for build costs to budget projects and price dilapidations claims.

Construction contract knowledge (JCT and similar standard forms)

Once you're administering projects you are applying the contract - certifying payments, granting extensions of time, handling disputes - and getting it wrong has real financial consequences.

Negotiation

Dilapidations, party wall matters and contractor claims are all settled by argument between two surveyors, and holding a reasoned position under pressure is how value is won or lost.

Time and workload management across multiple live jobs

You will typically juggle several surveys, several projects and several deadlines at once, each with a client chasing you.

Putting these on a CV? We counted which skills 12,914 live graduate adverts ask for, and what to do with the answer — part of our application advice.

Where it leads

Graduate / assistant building surveyor: doing inspections and drafting reports under supervision, shadowing on projects, building your APC experience record.
Chartered building surveyor (MRICS) after completing the APC - conventionally around two years of structured experience post-graduation, though it commonly takes longer if your experience is narrow or you switch employers. Chartership usually brings a noticeable pay step and the ability to sign off your own work.
Senior surveyor: running your own projects and clients end to end, supervising graduates, possibly specialising in dilapidations, party walls, insurance reinstatement, heritage buildings, fire safety or building safety regulation work.
Associate / director in private practice, or head of estates / asset management in a client-side organisation such as a housing association, university, NHS trust or local authority. Timelines here vary enormously and depend on bringing in fee income or managing budgets rather than just technical skill.
Alternative directions: setting up a small independent practice (common, since the start-up costs are low), moving into expert witness work, project management, development monitoring, or client-side property roles.

What people get wrong

“Building surveying is the same as the valuation survey a bank does when someone buys a house.”

That's a valuation surveyor's job and it's a different APC pathway. Building surveyors look at the physical condition and construction of buildings - a lot of the work is commercial property, refurbishment projects and landlord/tenant disputes, not residential homebuyer reports.

“It's mostly fieldwork - you're out on site in a hard hat all day.”

Site time is a real and enjoyable part of the job, but much of the week is desk-based: writing reports, drafting specifications, reviewing contractor valuations, emailing clients and logging chargeable time. The split shifts further towards the desk as you become more senior.

“You need a construction or engineering degree to get in.”

Non-cognate graduates convert in routinely via an accredited MSc, and employers often sponsor it. What matters is reaching chartership, not what you studied at 18.

“Qualifying is the end of the exams.”

The APC is a judged professional assessment rather than a sit-down exam, and it is only the start - RICS requires ongoing continuing professional development every year, and specialisms like party walls, fire safety or building safety come with further training.

Where this varies

The work differs a lot depending on who you work for. In a private consultancy you're fee-earning for external clients, recording chargeable time, and the mix tends towards surveys, dilapidations and project work. Client-side roles - housing associations, local authorities, universities, hospitals, retailers with large estates - mean looking after one portfolio long-term, with more planned maintenance, compliance and budget work and usually less time pressure but also often lower pay. Smaller regional practices give you broad, varied work early; large national firms tend to specialise you sooner and offer more structured APC support. There is also a growing split between traditional building surveying and building safety / fire safety work following changes to building safety regulation, which some firms now treat as a separate team.

See all 16 live Building Surveying jobsFrom employers' own careers sites, updated daily Tailor your CV for this roleFree with an account, 3 a month

General guidance about the role across the UK market, not about any specific employer. Entry routes and requirements vary — always check the individual job advert.