RICS is working with the Chartered Surveyors Training Trust to ensure that a career in surveying is available to all potential entrants, as Graham Smith, Marketing Executive – Students and Careers at RICS Marketing reports.
What’s unique about surveying? Apart from being a career that allows you to shape the world around you, it is also the only profession that offers an apprenticeship route to full professional status.
The Chartered Surveyors Training Trust (CSTT) was established in 1984 to provide opportunities for young people aged 18 to 24 who would not otherwise have the opportunity to access a career in surveying. Trainees can enter the scheme either at the age of 16, after completing their GCSEs, or at 18, after their A-Levels.
Around 80 school-leavers are selected by the Trust each year. They are set up with an employer and then begin working four days a week while attending a day-release course at college or university on the fifth day. Each trainee is paid a basic £150 per week plus travel expenses, and is managed for eight years before they are ready to sit the APC.
Employer benefits
To remove any burden for employers, trainees are supported in their studies by the Trust’s in-house training and education staff through a series of interviews. Faithful & Gould currently employs a number of the Trust’s trainees. Nick Guglielmucci, Associate Director, says: “The fact is that the Trust is expert at pre-screening potential trainees, and this saves us the risk of making a poor selection. There is a three-way training agreement signed by the Trust, the trainee and ourselves. This covers the first two years. We pay £100-150 per week to the trainee to cover day-release costs, and the Trust, with funding help from the Learning and Skills Council, makes a weekly contribution for travel and subsistence costs. After this period we would normally offer the trainee a full-time job and salary.”
Trainees quickly become very useful to employers, and can be earning £14 000 to £16 000 per year by the time they are in their early 20s. A trainee completing the eight-year apprenticeship and passing the APC could expect to earn £25 000 to £26 000, a higher salary than a new graduate could expect.
Best of both worlds
One of Faithful & Gould’s current school-leaver intake is 17-year-old Robert Shaw from Watford. He started last September and thoroughly enjoys the life. “It is an advantage being so young – everyone remembers you,” he says. “As a trainee, I provide support and administration to my team as well as shadowing them through their assignments and projects. Work-based learning is a great way to gain a real understanding of the business.”
Robert’s training is supported and managed by the Trust’s in-house training and education manager, with a dedicated assessor to support him through his work-based learning. “My apprenticeship gives me the best of both worlds,” says Robert. “I learn by doing and I get paid to do so.”
And he is excited about the range of projects that he is able to work on. “As I’m the most junior person, I get involved in a lot of projects to ensure I get a variety of experience,” he says. “It is great that London has won the Olympics. I’ll be 24 in 2012, and hopefully I’ll be in a position to be involved as a surveyor with such a massive event.”
The surveying apprenticeship is just the start for Robert: already he has clear plans for his future. “I hope to choose between becoming a building, quantity or project management surveyor,” he says. “At Faithful & Gould I have the opportunity, once trained, to go into any of these areas and to work all over the world. This really is an investment in my future.”
Shaping the future
Michael Thomas, 20, from Flitwick in Bedfordshire is a trainee working in the residential department at Donaldsons in London. Articulate and with a professional manner that is seldom found among his peers at university, Michael is keen to enthuse about how the Trust has helped shape his future.
“Following my first meeting with the Trust in 2002, an interview was arranged almost immediately with Donaldsons,” he says. “I have spent the last three years working with them on the 22 000 properties owned by Wandsworth Borough Council.”
Surveying remains one of the few remaining ‘hands on’ professions, which appeals greatly to young people deciding on what career path they should follow. Michael says that his lifestyle is the envy of his lawyer or accountant equivalents: “Surveyors get out and about – you can’t be chained to your desk and be effective,” he says. “Surveying is an incredibly social profession. I have developed relationships with the council, estate agents and local residents, and you can only do this by meeting face to face.”
The benefits of the apprenticeship approach can also be measured in financial terms. Michael Thomas explains: “Many of my friends haven’t even finished university, yet have already amassed debts of over £6 000. I’m on a career path that will allow me to get a degree without any debt and with eight years of excellent experience. The Trust really gives me a great platform to fulfil my ambitions, which at the moment are to continue to learn at Donaldsons and get as much varied experience as I can.”
A diverse workforce
The CSTT addresses the needs of the modern surveying world. Many firms, both large and small, require a diverse workforce, which reflects both the clients they work for and the markets they operate in. Currently, 27% of the Trust’s trainees are from ethnic minorities. Bola Abisogun, 34, is a chartered quantity surveyor with his own firm, Accessable Advice, based on Old Street in London. He supports moves to appeal to students from a variety of backgrounds. “One of the positives about being black in a predominantly non-black industry is demonstrating to the disbelievers that anything is possible,” he says.
Trend setting
RICS works closely with CSTT to promote the benefits of the scheme to students at school and college. RICS hosts the regular CSTT assessment days and has designed the new CSTT brochure, which looks to attract students to the scheme. “Careers in surveying should be inclusive to all individuals,” says Phill Butler, Marketing Manager – Students and Careers at RICS. “The Institution actively supports the CSTT scheme, which offers real opportunities to become a chartered surveyor to individuals who would not normally be afforded this opportunity.”
The CSTT apprenticeship route to chartered surveyor status is likely to become more relevant with the spiralling costs of going to university. Indeed, a recent report confirmed that the average level of debt that those graduating in 2005 could expect to have is £10 400.
Roger Southam, Chairman of the CSTT and Managing Director of property company Chainbow, is upbeat. “The fact that the CSTT scheme leaves each trainee with a degree and absolutely no debt is absolutely our best selling point,” he says. “We encourage employers to get in touch with us to understand how they can both save on their recruitment costs and greatly increase the diversity of their workforce.”
Richard Carter, Associate Partner at Martin Associates, is a former CSTT trainee and another advocate of the scheme. “I cannot understand why a business would not consider using CSTT trainees. Every second-year trainee I have is doing work that is similar in nature to that expected of a graduate, yet is less than half the cost. After one year, a trainee is bringing in fees.”
Richard insists that responsibility and maintaining interest is the key to success. “Like any teenager, if they’re bored, they’ll walk,” he says. “It’s your job to keep them stimulated and interested. That way you get the reward and they become an invaluable part of your business.”
For more information, contact the CSTT on t +44 (0)20 7194 7952, e cstt@cstt.org.uk or visit the CSTT website.
This article appeared in RICS Business, March 2006.
