The job

Clare spent one week and two days in the quantity surveying department at Citex. QS Melissa Martin drew up a timetable of events so that Clare would sample building surveying, project management and facilities management. The assignment also included a number of site visits.

Week one

Monday I meet Melissa Martin at Citex, who arranged my timetable. Straight away, I am given plans of an office development and told to digitise the areas: this means tracing floor and other spaces into the computer. In the afternoon, we go through a cost plan of the building I digitised.

Tuesday Site visit to Somerset House in central London. I see images of what the project will look like when completed. They are putting in authentic cobbles in the courtyard and fountainheads. It is meant to be finished in the middle of May but it doesn’t look nearly finished to me. In the afternoon, I attend a meeting about the redevelopment of St Luke’s Church in Old Street, which will be used by the London Symphony Orchestra.

Wednesday Site meeting in Bracknell for a new building at a business park. The structural engineer, architect and contractor were at the meeting.

Thursday Spend the day with a building surveyor doing a dilapidation report on an industrial building in Basingstoke, which is also part of a business park. The building surveyor goes round a building when the tenant has moved out to assess any damage.

Friday Spend the day with the project management department, which is really interesting. We go to Dagenham, where they are redeveloping a BT vehicle service centre. In the afternoon, I return to the project management department to have a chat with the project managers about their roles. They take me through some projects. One of the most interesting is the redevelopment of the Gainsborough Studios in Islington, north London. It has been turned into a temporary theatre and they explain how they had to do the job against a very tight deadline.

Week two

Monday Visit the site of the Ocean Music Venue in Hackney. This is really interesting, as music is one of my hobbies. I would really like to go back when it is finished to see how it turns out.

Tuesday Visit the DETR’s offices in central London. Citex has the facilities management contract. I am taken through every aspect of what Citex does, from cleaning to catering. The facilities management team shows me how CAD works. They have a plan of every room, chair, desk and cabinet so they can pick up the desk and move it around and see what it would look like. I have a long chat about the energy and environmental management at the DETR.

Will Clare become a quantity surveyor?

Everyone I spoke to seemed to really enjoy what they did and they were all very enthusiastic. The most interesting part for me was visiting the sites. I particularly liked going to Somerset House and the Ocean Music Venue.

In terms of actual jobs, being a building surveyor or a project manager seemed the most varied. The project managers in particular had a very responsible role. They are managing for the client and pulling together a big range of expertise, from the architect to the contractor. The quantity surveyor’s role seems quite limited, though. I appreciate its purpose but it seems to be a no man’s land that is neither designing or building but just measuring.

I have had a think about why people don’t want to go into construction. First, people don’t know about it. Before I went to Citex, I didn’t know you could do a degree in quantity surveying. In the sixth form, we had accountants, doctors and lawyers who came to give careers talks but nobody from the construction sector.

I also got the impression that the pay is quite poor. Maybe not at graduate level, but further up the scale. It is not necessarily a problem, though, because everyone I spoke to enjoyed their job.

I definitely enjoyed the short time I was there. I have not come out thinking: “Yes, I will take up construction as a career,” but it was good to experience it from the inside. At the moment, though, I can’t see myself going into construction.

Steve Lee, managing director of Citex, on why quantity surveying needs graduates like Clare

I would say Clare is exactly the kind of person we need in the industry. She struck me as bright and enthusiastic. I would have no problem taking someone like Clare as a graduate and training them up in the technical areas of the business.

It was interesting having her in the company and talking to other people who worked with her. They also found it a useful experience to have someone with no knowledge of the industry with them.

Clare is right when she says that there isn’t enough information in schools about quantity surveying as a career. If you are numerate, you get pushed towards banking or accountancy. We have concentrated on undergraduates in the past but I think we need to raise the profile of the construction industry much earlier.

Career, girls?