Study asks professionals to reflect on their education

While most organisations benefit from building surveying graduates complementing degree apprentices, some still consider that  in general modern graduates are substandard and lack the experience necessary to practise.

Given that I have educated many such students myself, the persistence of this view prompted me to research chartered surveyors who had graduated from UK universities over the past 35 years, to establish:

• how they entered higher education and their degree outcomes
• their experience of APC postgraduate training, and gaining professional membership
• their career progression and job satisfaction.

I set up an online survey to which 65 chartered building surveyors responded – and while this number is quite small, there are identifiable trends in the data.

The late 1990s and early 2000s, though, saw students having to pay fees themselves for the first time, although these started relatively low at £1,000 per year and only rose to £3,000 in 2006.

It was the 2010s that saw the biggest rise, to £9,000, with this remaining largely static in the decade since despite a significant increase in inflation.

Some respondents entered university with vocational BTEC qualifications while others came with A levels, though both routes are used to calculate the number of UCAS points to determine students' eligibility for courses.

There is a drop off in the numbers entering full-time degrees with BTECs from the 1990s at 56%, to the present at 20%. 

The average number of chartered respondents having done A levels is 74% compared to 26% with BTECs. Those who have completed a degree apprenticeship amount to 6% of those surveyed but the numbers are low , representing a total of only four respondents.

Overall, though, there has been a notable increase in average UCAS points across the 35-year dataset for all entrants to building surveying courses.

The research data – which will be published later this year – also shows that women enrolling on UK building surveying courses accounted for 12% of cohorts in the 1990s, increasing to around 20% presently.

Furthermore, the survey across the whole 35-year period identified that female applicants had 21% higher UCAS points than men on average, which is equivalent at A level to the difference to obtaining an A and B grade.

This aligns with data from the Chartered Management Institute, which shows that boys tend to lag behind girls throughout primary and secondary education.

However, according to my survey findings, the gap does narrow across a three or four year building surveying degree programme, with women gaining 12% more first-class awards than men. The survey also showed that current graduates have the highest level of first-class attainment, with 60% obtaining such classification after 2020 compared to 20% in the 1990s.

This figure is significantly higher than the 29.6% of first-class awards in higher education – as reported by the Office for Students in 2024– but still reflects the upward trend in first-class attainment across the sector.

There are some exceptions, with a minority of academic institutions still having industry-focused teaching staff; but on the whole, building surveying degrees are being taught by those with a largely academic background.

A similar downward trend was observed in those completing sandwich degrees, in which students spend their third of four years working before returning to the classroom.

One respondent noted: 'The year out in industry was the best part of my degree, and I could not wait to get my final year over to get back into the working environment.'

However, the reasons for this vary.

For earlier graduates, who were exempt from paying or only paid minimal fees – especially those who graduated before the year 2000 – the opportunity for more experiential learning was the main reason for preferring a degree apprenticeship over a full-time degree.

However, those who faced £9,000 tuition fees – and have felt the burden of student debt – cited cost as outweighing experience being their motivation.

As one respondent observed: 'I would have considered the [degree apprenticeship] route as I believe it provides more exposure to the industry. However, like many, university provided me with a wider network of people[, which] will likely outweigh the short-term lack of experience.'

This is perhaps where the fundamental difference between full-time education and degree apprenticeships lies. If building surveying is a profession that can largely be taught through work-based learning, my research asked whether it is actually necessary to have an accredited degree.

Two-thirds of respondents agreed that it was, which affirms the narrative that while a degree is necessary it is important to recognise that there are different ways to obtain such a qualification.

While current cohorts attain more first-class degrees than their predecessors, they are still short of industry exposure.

Nevertheless, the data indicates that generation on generation are also passing their APC more quickly, with a marginally higher success rate at the first attempt. The average time taken to obtain professional membership has dropped from 36 months in the 1990s to 28 months since 2020.

Furthermore, the gap between women's and men's attainment generally narrows to a negligible percentage as they become chartered, all of which points towards the success of structured graduate schemes and APC support.

This was something reflected in the survey comments, with one respondent saying: 'The industry has changed since my APC training, and my current company now invests time and money in supporting candidates.'

However, the responses also indicate that about one in three trainees switch employer during their APC, with 66% of these saying their work does not provide the diversity of experience they need to pass.

The research data also identified that even degree apprenticeship candidates switch employers during their training. Although there were only four respondents in this category, one had switched employer, citing a lack of work variety.

As another respondent remarked, the APC 'needs a dedicated individual, or individuals in management [or] leadership roles to help form the training experience. There needs to be fluidity in an apprentice's development, and businesses need to ensure apprentices are not sat in one team that may focus [only] on one workstream. This limits their experience.'

However, the well-documented gender gap in business as a whole is evident in the time taken for female surveyors to achieve promotions to this level. Allowing for the fact that fewer respondents to the survey were in senior roles, which could skew the findings, women take between 30% and 75% longer to achieve promotion to such positions than their male counterparts.

There are no doubt a number of reasons why this may be the case; however, this was not a focus of my research.

Similarly, although few who graduated in or after 2020 are in senior roles, there is little evidence to suggest that they achieve promotion quicker than their predecessors.

While an overall average of 89% of respondents reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their careers, examining the data in more detail there is a suggestion that more newly qualified surveyors are less satisfied.

This appears to indicate that irrespective of the degree format and APC training, a surveying career is intense and challenging in the beginning but becomes more fulfilling with time.

However, the two modes of study are completely different and cannot be truly compared. A full-time degree is still an immersive experience in which students are in or around a campus environment several days a week, whereas degree apprenticeships tend to offer only one full day of structured learning.

This immersion comes at a cost, but although some students lament taking on a high level of debt, when I asked those in my class who are coming towards the end of their studies how they felt, they did not share this opinion.

The suspicion that modern graduates are not up to the required standard is dispelled by my research findings, although they may have had less exposure to industry and therefore be less practice-ready

However, despite the need for significant on-the-job training for graduates and degree apprentices alike, most practising professionals agree that the degree is still paramount.

My research also identifies the importance of structured training on both degree pathways for subsequent APC success. As one respondent said, all those enrolled on the APC need to recognise that it is 'their' APC and that sense of ownership is paramount to success.

Accordingly, successful outcomes depend both on the candidate's commitment and on the quality of the training programme.