The APC is overhauled

The changes affect pathways, competencies, minimum training times and candidate templates.

Three new pathways have been added in total, including ‘Quantity Surveying and Construction’ which replaces the two previous separate faculty routes. Stuart Earl, a partner at Gleeds and London member of the Quantity Surveying and Construction Faculty Board at the RICS, said this was a response to the message from employers and not from the name change within the RICS: “The Contractor and PQS routes have been merged. This recognises the fact that they do the same jobs,” he said. “We’ve made it a lot clearer – it’s not a radical redraw.”

The other two additions are ‘Property Finance and Investment’ and ‘Home Inspection’.

Several mandatory competencies have been merged or deleted, such as law which the RICS described as being “so intrinsic to the profession that they are embedded within the technical competencies”.

Meanwhile, candidates registering graduate route 1 must now have at least 23 months’ structured training before applying for the final assessment. This has been extended from 21 months due to “widespread concern” that candidates were applying too early.

We’ve made it a lot clearer – it’s not a radical redraw

Stuart Earl, partner, Gleeds

The RICS has also cut the number of APC/ATC templates for candidates from 17 to 10.

Alpesh Patel, director of APC Coach, said the changes were significant, but that an “opportunity had been lost”.

He said: “The biggest opportunity that has been lost was for the RICS to have more control of the supervisors and counsellors. They act as a net before candidates see the assessor and I think the RICS could have made these roles a lot stronger. The RICS could have forced them to go on a course. As it is, it’s the same old story.”

In September the RICS will publish faculty specific guides to accompany the changes, which many anticipate will represent the biggest change. “They’ve never done this before,” added Patel.