‘If you still count bricks, read this and get a vision’

The first edition of this visionary book, published in 2002, set out the future for quantity surveying. Now that the prediction has become reality, New Aspects of Quantity Surveying Practice is an indispensable guide to the opportunities and challenges facing the profession in the 21st century.

For those of us who have been in the profession since the 1970s, the definitive guide then was Practice and Procedure for the quantity surveyor by AJ & CJ Willis. In 1979, when the eighth edition was published, the QS world was a far less complicated place. Diversification into new fields for QSs included heavy engineering, coal mining and working abroad.

In the Willis book, the world of the QS was portrayed as a mainly technical back of office operation providing a limited range of services in the days before compulsory competitive tendering and fee competition.

Gradual change occurred through the 1980s and over the last 15 years the construction industry has undergone rapid change with the publication of the Latham and Egan Reports and QS professionals have been at the forefront of these changes.

Changing attitudes to procurement and partnering, and the evolving role of clients, have put the QS profession at the heart of delivering major construction projects.

Duncan Cartlidge assesses what has driven these changes and what they mean for the profession and for the industry as a whole.

He explains modern procurement methods and assesses how much impact technology has had in construction management and how much it might have in the future.

For years the UK construction industry has flirted with issues such as whole life costs and sustainability/green issues.

These subjects are covered in chapter three of the book while an entire chapter is devoted to global markets. In short: if you are still counting bricks, read this and get a vision.