Young ones

The world of chartered surveying has often been perceived as something of a closed shop – open only to middle-class university graduates who are usually the children of people in a similar field. This can make it a bit of a stumbling block in the construction industry’s efforts to diversify.

One organisation that is trying to change this is the Chartered Surveyors Training Trust. Established in 1984, the trust is a registered charity that also receives funding from the Learning Skills Council to recruit young people, often straight out of school at 16, from a variety of backgrounds. The minimum qualification is just three GCSEs, but if they pass the selection process, and continue through the advanced apprenticeship, HNC and degree courses, the trainees could qualify as members of the RICS within nine years – all the while gaining practical experience and actually earning money rather than paying tuition fees.

One man who is keen to extol the virtues of the trust is Richard Carter, associate partner at chartered surveyor Martin Associates. “After school, I went to college full time, but I struggled academically. I started with the trust in 1992 – my Mum thought it sounded like slave labour but combining a job with part-time education was the right balance for me. I managed to learn from work and take that into college.”

From fairly inauspicious beginnings, Carter, at 30, has just completed an MSc in project management and in his position as an employer is keen to help the trust with the next generation. This is partly a case of giving something back, and partly a sensible step forward for the company. “We have seven trainees out of a staff of 33. I work very closely with all of them. They probably relate to me as a living example of what they can achieve.”

He adds: “We see the trainees as an integral part of us getting bigger as a company. We want to take on a trainee every year – that way, we can mould them into what we want them to be.”

The current batch of trainees seems equally enthusiastic about the trust’s work. Kerri Neizer, 20 (pictured top), has a work placement in the quantity surveying department at Faithful & Gould and is studying part-time for a five-year BSc in construction management at South Bank University. She says: “I think it’s a much better approach than going to university. It’s hard enough to get a job when you leave university, and on top of that you’ll have no experience.” While her contemporaries are building up an unenviable mountain of student debt, the average salary for a trust trainee on the first year of a degree course is £14,000.

Robert Shaw (pictured), 17 and also at Faithful & Gould, adds: “I was doing a GNVQ in construction, but it wasn’t really taking me anywhere. With this, I’m 17 and I get paid enough to live on.”