If you are studying to become a qualified surveyor or interested in the profession, this article highlights why adopting digital data collection and reporting is crucial in supporting your future work and includes some practical advice on how to get support from your current professor or future employer.
You’re either thinking about, or currently investing, hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds on your future career as a surveyor. There is no doubt that to become successful in the profession requires a high level of commitment, dedication, and hard work.
Whether your interest lies in the residential or commercial sectors, or perhaps you don’t know yet, a career in surveying promises to be interesting and rewarding while making a positive impact on people’s lives and the communities we live in.
In developing your career, the theoretical study, practical experience and mentorship provided by experienced professionals will all contribute to your skills and lead to tremendous opportunities in a wide range of potential specialisms.
However, for the surveyor of today, it is also vitally important to consider the tools that you will use and, in particular, the role of digitisation in the future of surveying. The skills and knowledge that you develop now to understand digital data collection, reporting and analysis will not only ensure that you are starting off in the most efficient and effective way but will enable you to concentrate fully on the art of surveying. In turn, this will ultimately lead to a fulfilling career and enable you to take advantage of the best possible surveying opportunities as your career progresses.
The GoReport solution is a key tool for today’s surveyor across a wide range of residential and commercial surveying. Our Knowledge Base contains lots of content on the importance of digital data collection, efficient production of high-quality reports and aggregating data for analysis and decision making. There are many great customer stories available to help you understand GoReport in action and you may even know someone already using our solution.
So how do you take the next steps to understand and adopt technology in surveying?
As an aspiring professional either growing up with technology or seeing its impact on other aspects of your life, you can easily understand the benefits that the appropriate application of technology can deliver. However, there remains some challenges for new or aspiring surveyors in getting exposure to such solutions.
- At University or approved qualification study, there is naturally a strong focus towards the theory and practical understanding of surveying problems with less time or attention on business or technology aspects of surveying. This is common across many professional courses including Architecture, Engineering disciplines etc.
- Mentorship with more experienced surveyors is an invaluable part of the surveyor’s career journey and is key to your development. However, as technology has evolved quickly in the last 10 years, your mentor may not have adopted or fully understood the benefits that are now available to surveyors. In this case, you may find opportunity to learn this aspect is limited or indeed, in some cases, be advised negatively due to a lack of the mentors own technological experience.
- There are many organisations that have fully embraced digital data collection, for example GoReport alone have over 500 clients, but you will still find good surveying companies that have not yet adopted digital or are still suffering from a reluctance to change and fully adopt as a “digital first” capability. There can be many reasons for this, from a lack of understanding of the potential through to not making the time to explore how to do it better. You may even encounter a negative perception of technology adoption or a leadership that just has not yet realised the value and the future competitive importance of adopting digital
None of the above challenges should put you off your desire to use digital solutions to support your surveying career growth! We have made a number of suggestions below to support your progress.
Advice and guidance to take charge of your digital journey!
Educate yourself
If you want to avail of the best possible tools to support your surveying career, make sure you know as much about the topic as possible. There are plenty of resources available to understand the impact of technology on the surveying sector and customer stories from those who have adopted and achieved real benefit. You should also never be shy of asking a software provider for their time in helping you understand more!
There are some useful start points below to help you get started;
- Fully understand the benefits of adopting technology. Read: The benefits of digital data collection in surveying
- Ensure the benefits relate to your business and are economically viable. Read: Measuring the ROI of digital transformation
- Contact GoReport and we’ll happily walk you through specific examples giving you confidence and certainty that adopting a digital solution is right for you and your employer.
https://goreport.com/contact-us/
Ask the right Questions
Just as your surveying logic teaches you, you should always be prepared to ask the right questions of those around you in the profession. When it comes to learning about digital adoption, you should ask the question but ensure you validate the answers with other sources!
- Ask your Lecturers about their experience with digital data collection and reporting in the first instance. Ask if any consideration has been given to inviting a software vendor such as GoReport to present to the year group to broaden student understanding of what digital transformation in surveying is and how it supports surveyors. Software vendors should always be keen to support the next generation!
- GoReport are proud to be founding members of the original RICS Tech Affiliate Programme and now Tech Partner Programme RICS Tech Partner Programme which has been established to develop and promote the use of technology in the land, real estate, construction, and infrastructure sectors and to create confidence in the industry. The platform provides useful content to broaden your awareness of what’s already available and insights on what’s next for the new generation of surveyors.
- If you have a mentor within a work placement or in employment, ask them about their experiences and about the different organisations they have worked in. Even if they haven’t experienced digital or have had a bad experience, don’t be afraid to discuss the topic and understand what their fears and concerns are. These will be the first things you will want to be sure can be solved when you explore digital for yourself.
- During your interview with a new Employer, you should be confident to ask the question, “what software and solutions do you use for digital data collection and reporting?”. If the answer is none, then it is reasonable to progress the conversation into what the business plans are and the challenges of remaining competitive in the future. Someone who has given thought to their career progression and the direction of the industry is always an attractive proposition to a future employer. In addition, many employers are now actively seeking recruits who have a positive attitude to adopting digital to ensure the business continues to realise the benefits of their investment.
- If you are already in employment and the business is not supporting the use of digital, you can help to educate your new employer or your colleagues that, embracing change and understanding the benefits of digitisation is a key differentiator and it cannot be ignored!
Think about the future of your industry sector
There are lots of very exciting future technological advances in the surveying industry including drones, 3D scanning, machine learning etc. As a professional, or soon to be fully qualified professional, you have an obligation to think about where your industry is going both from a purely technical point of view in surveying theory and practice, and in the tools that you will use in the future to support your career.
There are different surveying specialisms that will have a better practical and economic fit for certain types of technology, and you should explore those relevant for your particular specialism. However, the basis of digital data collection and reporting as opposed to pen and paper is always going to be a solid start point for all surveying practice!
For surveyors, the appropriate application of any technology is adopting a tool that is effective in supporting their job, allowing them to spend as much time as possible on the application of their surveying knowledge by being as efficient and effective with collecting data and delivering an output and guidance.
Young Surveyor of the Year
On a final note, you may have heard of RICS Young Surveyor of the Year awards and perhaps aspire to be shortlisted in the near future. In summary the awards recognise the inspirational and diverse young surveying professionals in the UK. They showcase the highest standards of professionalism and innovation within the built environment and provide an opportunity to identify the future industry leaders.
GoReport are privileged to have as clients many inspirational companies who have been recognised by RICS for their contribution to the profession. One of which is Novello Chartered Surveyors. James Brook, Director of Novello Chartered Surveyors won the RICS Young Surveyor of the Year award in the Residential Property category for his success in launching Novello Chartered Surveyors and the development of bespoke surveys; Homelevel Report and Novello+ Building Survey.
Like many of you, James is a surveyor with a passion for technology and innovation who has quickly gained a reputation for his excellent service. Read more about Novello’s success story here.
Finally, making sure you are using the right equipment from the start will ensure your journey to becoming a surveyor is much more effective and lead to greater opportunities. GoReport gives you all you need to help you deliver the next generation of surveys and inspections.
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