Missing

The 1990s

Brian Cato remembers 1990 vividly. A young, London-based surveyor, undertaking his intermediate RICS exams, he realised that he’d be very lucky to keep his job. Recession had hit the UK and it would hit construction hard. “People coming out of college at the time were unable to find work and middle management surveyors were being made redundant. It was pretty bad,” he says.

The memories are strong because the huge loss of QSs during the early 1990s has come back to haunt Cato, now aged 37 and an associate partner of London-based Martin Associates, and thousands of other business leaders in the profession. Says Cato: “There aren’t many QSs who are five years younger than me or many who are five years older. There’s a gap and that means big competition for professionals with ten to fifteen years’ experience.”

According to the Office of National Statistics, the construction industry’s unemployment rate peaked at a massive 19% in 1993. The results for the QS profession were dire. Teenagers who may have chosen a career in the area instead headed for the greener pastures of growth industries like IT. Newly trained but unemployed surveyors took a similar route and, as Cato says, a band of middle managers found themselves ousted.

Rob Tovey, director of education and training at the RICS, says the loss of this “generation” is having a huge impact on surveying businesses across the sector. “The number of new entrants to quantity surveying is the highest it’s been since the recession, but the big lack of middle management level professionals is definitely affecting companies, even if they don’t like to admit it,” he says.

The fallout

Job market experts agree. Peter Moore, managing director of recruitment firm MacDonald & Company, says the lack of QSs with ten or so years of experience is affecting all firms, large and small. In some cases, the lack of available staff is even stunting businesses growth. “It’s increasingly difficult for all firms to recruit from that bracket. The issue is a major factor restricting growth for some firms,” says Moore. “So it’s hard to overestimate the impact of scarce skills on businesses’ performance.”

The lack of middle management level professionals is definitely affecting companies, even if they don’t like to admit it

Rob Tovey, Director of education and training, RICS

The pressure on companies to compete for candidates from a limited pool has also impacted on salaries and therefore profit margins. For the last five years, surveyors’ pay has risen well above inflation. It increased by an average of 4.5% last year (see box) and this figure is even higher in some parts of the country where shortages are particularly acute. One partner from a medium sized firm based in the South East says rates have gone up “better than well”. He says: “It’s not unheard of to see surveyors in their 30s on over £40,000 a year with a car. It’s a candidate’s market.”

But recruitment consultants say the ability of employers to offer a higher salary than the next firm is limited. As Moore says, “Businesses have to remain financially viable and salary is not the only factor in choosing an employer, candidates have become very interested in the range of benefits and career opportunities an employer can offer.” That salaries increased by less in 2004 than they did in 2003 (when increases averaged 5.4%) could indicate that pay increases have begun to settle.

The RICS is concerned about another trend emerging from the pressure to fill the “generation gap”. The RICS’ Tovey says there is a tendency for some firms to elevate QSs to senior positions before they have completed their APC. “Companies are so busy with their day-to-day concerns that a few aren’t putting their staff through the APC or are delaying the process,” he says.

Recruitment consultants agree that there are instances where candidates are able to bag jobs that aren’t necessarily commensurate with their experience. “Job titles are getting out of hand, everyone seems to be an associate,” says Tim Rowe, director of Cobalt Recruitment. “But then people do often progress quickly through the ranks. Sometimes it’s out of desperation on the part of the employer. But mainly it is because people have the talent.”

Employers are quick to draw parallels to other industries. As Ian Brazier, managing director at West Sussex-based Adeo Consulting, says: “It’s not just surveying that sees young people reach seniority at a young age. The same thing happens in banking and the media and so on. The fact is, employers value dynamic people whatever their age.”

Plugging the gap

The need for skilled people is so dire that some companies are using overseas staff to do the basic work

Peter Moore, managing director, MacDonald & Company

So how are employers coping with the lack of QSs at this level? Brazier says that until recently he looked to recruit Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans as a short-term way of bridging the gap. But he has found the supply of overseas workers has all but dried up. “South Africa has become more settled and there is plenty of work available there, while it seems harder these days for Antipodeans to convert their holiday visas into work visas,” he says. Other business leaders agree that importing skills has limited scope.

But there is still scope for using foreign labour. MacDonald & Company’s Moore says he’s seeing more and more companies outsource basic surveying tasks to lower cost countries like Malaysia. “The need for skilled people is so dire that some companies are using the services of overseas staff to do basic work so that their staff are freed up to tackle the complex stuff.”

More often companies are simply resorting to poaching staff from each other. Cobalt Recruitment’s Rowe says it often isn’t enough to distribute job advertisements, his clients require a more proactive approach. “We contact people and explain the opportunities they would have at a new employer. If our client is working on an interesting, high profile contract, for example one is working on an Olympics project, then we sell that. Part of our job is to work out who is feeling a bit stale and in need of new challenges.”

Of course, poaching does not reduce the number of job vacancies. It only shuffles them around the industry. For David Murray, director of group operations for Currie & Brown, the only sensible approach to this thorny problem is to retain, and make the most of, your staff. He says Currie & Brown tailors training to suit the needs of individuals as well as meeting corporate needs. “We listen very carefully to staff and develop training programmes that are suitable to their particular needs.” He says: “We also take care to explain our corporate needs so that staff understand where our business is heading and feel a sense of participation.”

The shortage of senior Qss is set to continue for the short-term for the simple fact that it will take time for junior recruits to the industry to reach this level. But Murray, along with the RICS, recruitment consultants and other business leaders, is confident that the longer-term picture will be rosier. “The number of new entrants to the industry is increasing,” he says. “With the 2012 Olympic games we have a great opportunity to attract more new blood into the profession and construction in general. As an industry, we just need to make sure that the message gets out that there’s huge potential for a great career in surveying.”