Meet the new recruits

It is ironic that the one thing missing from the quantity surveying market is a quantity of surveyors. As we reported in last week's QS News (see Name Your Price, 22 April), there is a chronic shortage of QSs and it is affecting both principal quantity surveyors (PQSs) and contractors. Take, for instance, Maxim – a relatively small recruitment agency – which has more than 300 positions on its books, with PQSs and contractors desperate for staff.

Contractors are reluctant to talk about staff shortfalls, perhaps fearing clients perceive it as a sign of weakness. By contrast, PQS practices and recruitment agencies are more open about the yawning gap between supply and demand. The websites of most of the majors reveal vacancies by the score (a trawl through those of EC Harris, Cyril Sweett, Davis Langdon, Turner & Townsend and Gardiner & Theobald came up with at least 120 cost control vacancies).

Gardiner & Theobald partner Gavin Murgatroyd explains: “There is a definite shortage of qualified and experienced quantity surveyors, and that is largely due to the demise of the education establishments.”

Kieran McStravick, of recruitment agency QS London, adds: “There used to be a lot more UK students doing degree courses, but since the mid-’80s, the majority of courses attract overseas students, particularly from Malaysia, Hong Kong and Africa. I think every PQS firm would agree there is a genuine shortage both of graduates and those qualified to APC [assessment of professional competence] level.”

Steve Thomas, founder of Maxim Recruitment, concurs. “People with two to seven years' experience are in demand and they are very difficult to find.” He thinks the last recession had a lot to do with the current shortages because it discouraged youngsters from entering the profession: “We lost the equivalent of half a generation,” he observes.

Trying to make up for this shortfall has led to an increase in the number of overseas-trained staff and the recruitment of graduates from non-cognate degree courses. But above all, it has created a boom time for freelance QSs – according to Thomas, the very best can command up to £300 per day.

Matthew Loughlin, operations director with construction manager PCM Management, sees this as a cause for concern, worrying that employing freelance QSs creates issues around areas such as reliability because a lot of trust is placed in them. “If they leave, they go with all your financial information,” he points out.

Loughlin also says the rise in self-employment has made permanent staff more astute about the salaries they can demand. "The differentials between salaries aren't as large as they used to be. Salaries for junior QSs are going up a lot more quickly than for senior QSs, although the salaries at the top end have tended to be capped – so, whereas the salary of an assistant QS used to be perhaps one-third or one-half of the salary of a senior QS, now that gap is closing."

Spreading a wider net

Andrew Moore, managing director of Cyril Sweett's cost consultancy division, says non-cognate degree holders are playing an increasing part in overcoming shortages. “We work on the basis that one third of our intake will come through traditional degree courses, another third via part-time courses and the final third will come from non-cognate degree courses. We currently employ geography, economics, and art and design students,” he explains.

Moore says some non-cognates are attracted by the salary they can command in QSing compared with those they could expect if they pursued employment more relevant to their degree. “A geography student is probably only going to get a starting salary of around £13,000, whereas in QSing, they could get a salary in the mid-£20,000s – and they've got to pay off their student loans.”

Gardiner & Theobald is pursuing a similar course, as Murgatroyd explains. “We are looking more towards non-cognate degree holders such as history, geography and biology graduates.

We look for good thinkers, with good analytical and mathematical skills, then we put them on a conversion course at Reading University – and we are turning out some very good surveyors as a result. “We’ve also had a few who have switched professions, but generally they are not as successful as the ‘raw’ graduates.”

The rise in non-cognates is being matched by that in overseas-trained QSs, mainly from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

McStravick of QS London observes: “An emerging trend is firms recruiting from overseas – particularly Malaysia and South Africa – and sorting out accommodation and work permits for them. The strength of the pound against the rand makes it a very attractive proposition for South Africans, and we’re getting a disproportionate number of applications from there.”

Elsewhere, Moore says Cyril Sweett has taken on "quite a few" South Africans and Australians, even though they have mainly been schooled under the ‘old’ bill of quantities principles rather than the cost consultancy practices that are now more commonplace in the UK.

“If they are fairly young, it is generally not a problem,” he observes. “Their attitude is as important as their skills.” Moore says that they generally stay at least until they have obtained chartered status, but notes that the Home Office is not as lenient as it used to be when granting work permits.

The market is also changing, making it easier for a QS to change ‘sides’. Loughlin notes: "As an industry, we have drifted away from bills of quantities to management contracting, design and build and construction management. It is more about managing and controlling costs than preparing BQs. Therefore, it is easier for people to make the transition from the contracting side to a PQS. The skills gap is very narrow."

QS London’s McStravick adds: “We do see some crossover where contractors’ QSs can't get their APC with their employer and join a PQS practice for wider experience or to get involved in project management. However, these tend to be from the smaller contractors because the larger contractors and subcontractors generally have very good training programmes.”

McStravick says there is little movement in the opposite direction. “Contractors tend to take people who have done other courses such as construction management because the QSing element is not so complex to teach, it principally involves valuations and final accounts.”

An additional strain on supply is emerging as more and more home-grown QSs join the quest for the megabucks being offered in places like Dubai, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. “Some have CVs to die for – it’s a big skills drain,” says Thomas.

The question is, what is happening to address this shortage in the longer term? Worryingly, nobody seems to have an answer.