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    1. Home
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    3. Quantity Surveyor

    Quantity Surveyor

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    Are you great with a budget? Do you live for organisation? If you want to put your skills to good use and oversee the commercial side of construction projects, a career as a quantity surveyor could be perfect for you.

    Are you interested in a career as a quantity surveyor? Explore the Engineering, Energy & Infrastructure jobs available to you right now.

    What does a quantity surveyor do?

    Quantity surveyors take responsibility for the smooth running of the budgeting and subcontractor management of construction projects. Here are some aspects of a typical quantity surveyor’s job profile:

    • Setting budgets by looking over the cost of materials, the estimated time of construction and other factors which may impact the cost of a project
    • Discussing budgets with subcontractors and other staff on the building site
    • Looking over an architect’s plans, seeing the overall concept for a building
    • Preparing documents. This includes tax forms for the construction, contracts for any staff that the company onboard and financial statements.
    • Reporting on the progress of the construction to clients
    • Updating timelines and budgets

    Quantity surveyor career path

    Making sure there is a great career path in any job you choose is a great way to make sure you’re satisfied with your progression throughout your working life. Here is the career path associated with quantity surveyors:

    Entry-level

    At the beginning of your career, you work as a junior quantity surveyor, whose job profile involves assisting more senior members of the team but also working on your own smaller-scale projects. You might manage contracts and monitor the progress and success of the project. Getting into the role often requires some years of prior experience in a construction-related role if you don’t have the direct qualifications that you need to do the job.

    Career progression

    When you progress to a mid-level quantity surveyor position, you’re given responsibility for more complex or larger projects. You’ve gained the experience to work alone but often have the opportunity to seek assistance from other members of the team.

    A senior quantity surveyor role incorporates similar tasks, but includes large-scale, complex projects as well as taking on responsibility for training and overseeing new staff members and reporting to the principal surveyor or commercial manager.

    Future career

    If you decide to, you could progress to a more managerial role as a commercial manager. In this role, you speak to new clients and show them the great work you can do so you can build the client base and increase the size of the business. You might also oversee the work of the quantity surveying team.

    Quantity surveyor salaries

    You have the opportunity to work your way up in a company as a quantity surveyor. The specific salary that you earn depends on the size of the company and its geographical location. Here are the salaries that you might expect at each level of the work:

    • Entry-level positions like junior quantity surveyor earn an average of £25,000 to £30,000 per year
    • Mid-level quantity surveyors earn between £45,000
    • Senior quantity surveyors earn an average of £60,000 per year, which could potentially raise to £80,000 per year

    Qualifications and training 

    Are you invested in the quantity surveyor career path? Making sure you have the right qualifications and experience is important for impressing any hiring manager and showing them that you’re right for the job. Here is the education you need to succeed in your quantity surveyor applications:

    Education

    A great way to become qualified as a quantity surveyor is to get an accredited degree from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). You could choose an undergraduate degree in Quantity Surveying, Construction Engineering or Construction Management. These degrees will give you the relevant skills and experience to do the job to a high level.

    If your undergraduate degree is in a different subject to Quantity Surveying or Construction Engineering, you can do a postgraduate conversion course.

    If you’re not interested in going down the degree path, you can do an apprenticeship. Your apprenticeship could be as a surveying technician. In an apprenticeship rather than a degree, you’ll get more hands-on and practical experience of the skills a quantity surveyor needs while actually saving money, as some internships offer you a modest salary for the work you do. However, reaching the goal of becoming a quantity surveyor is often not as easy with an apprenticeship as with a degree, as you’ll need some years of work experience first.

    Work experience

    If you’re interested in becoming a quantity surveyor but want to skip the degree or apprenticeship education, you can work your way up to entering the job. To become a quantity surveyor without specific education, you need around 5 to 10 years of experience in construction. This could be as a builder or contractor or in another relevant role. You need this amount of experience so that you can accurately estimate the cost of items, know the process of building and understand the building process. 

    Professional qualifications

    If you choose to, you can register to become a chartered surveyor with RICS. This will give you a professional status and perhaps help you to stand out among other quantity surveyors.

    Quantity surveyor skills

    Alongside the relevant education, having the right skills will help you fulfil the job profile of a quantity surveyor well. Here are the skills that you need to succeed:

    Hard skills

    • Knowledge of materials. You need to understand the range of materials available, the positives and negatives of using them in construction and the general costs associated with using them
    • Maths and finance. Being good at maths helps you figure out the quantities of materials you need and the general price that this might come to. This also helps you set budgets and understand where cutbacks can be made.

    Soft skills

    • Organisation. You need great organisational skills to be a quantity surveyor. This helps you keep on track of all the work you need to do, making sure all the necessary materials have been purchased and all the relevant documentation has been sent off so that there are no delays to the building works.
    • Negotiation. Quantity surveyors need to do some negotiation as part of the work. This might be negotiating budgets with contractors and clients, discussing the quantity and price of materials.
    • Communication. You need great communication skills so you can discuss with your colleagues or subcontractors exactly what they need to do, whether this is filling out a relevant form or submitting reports on budgets and timelines. To work well, you need to maintain positive working relationships with everyone in the team, and communicating well is a good step towards this.

    Pros and cons of being a quantity surveyor

    Are you intrigued by the idea of being a quantity surveyor? Even the best and most ideal jobs have positives and negatives. To make sure it’s the right career for you before you commit to a working life as a quantity surveyor, here is what you should consider:

    Pros

    • Being a quantity surveyor can offer a great salary
    • You could work on large and interesting projects
    • If you’re working as a consultant, you can often choose to work on the projects which interest you the most
    • You work on new projects, which makes work interesting because you have a new challenge to deal with

    Cons

    • Construction projects can take a long time, and being stuck on a project which you don’t like can make work less fun
    • There might be travel involved to get to a building site, which can make your working day even longer if you’re commuting. If you’re temporarily living near the site, this can lead to a more difficult home life.

    Work–life balance of a quantity surveyor 

    Most quantity surveyors work standard office hours of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. You may do some overtime work during more complex projects or when you have deadlines. 

    You could be employed by many different types of organisations as a quantity surveyor. You could work for a consultancy firm where the firm finds work for you to do. You could work for an architect as part of an in-house team that they offer to clients. You may even work for a property development firm where you and your team present a full multifaceted team to clients.

    Your working life is primarily in an office because of the high number of administration tasks that you do on a daily basis. Some of your work will be on the construction site, particularly if you have to talk to contractors and builders on a regular basis. 

    Typical employers hiring quantity surveyors

    Many types of organisations hire quantity surveyors, so whether you work in a consultancy firm or architect’s office is entirely up to your preference. Here are some of the typical employers that you could work for in quantity surveying:

    Related jobs to quantity surveyor

    More information

    Has life as a quantity surveyor sparked your interest? Explore the energy and infrastructure internships available now.

    This article was last updated in February 2025.

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