Have the differences between the construction professions blurred in recent years? With the ongoing drive in the industry to promote partnering and a team approach to working one might think so. Add also the increasing movement between contracting and consultancy in terms of staff and we might well be seeing the end of the sole practitioner or profession as we know it. Surely everyone in the sector will be offering everything from project management to design, quantity surveying to construction management all in one package from now on, just like multidisciplinary groups such as Atkins or Mace?

The question is one inadvertently tackled by our panel of experts who were asked how they currently perceived the QS profession (see pages 8-10). While some stereotypes are trotted out (badly dressed, always playing golf), there is appreciation from most of what the profession can, and still does, offer. Steve Hindley, chairman at contractor Midas, offers the most criticism, claiming that many QSs are still advising clients to take on traditional procurement methods.

The message from the rest of our panel though is clear: the QS should stick to what he or she knows. Not act as a barrier between client and contractor, or stay aloof from the rest of the industry, but act diligently and responsibly to ensure the budget and the procurement is right. As Piers Gough, partner at architect CZWG, puts it: “We like a job with a QS who’s proud to be a QS.” And for our panel this also means separating out the quantity surveying from project management discipline – so it looks like the multidisciplinary world could still be a little way off.

Leading client Geoff Wright, from developer Hammerson, claims his most successful schemes are ones on which these two separate appointments take place. The message then is hopefully quite a heartening one: quantity surveying may not be the highest profile or sexiest role in the sector, but it is a much valued one.

Source

QS News