Episode 34 – Part 1 – New talent troubles in the surveying industry, with Nina Young from Surveyors UK

The following transcript is autogenerated so may contain errors.

Matt Nally: On this week’s episode, we have Nina Young from Surveyors UK. So thank you for coming on. 

Nina Young: Thank you for inviting me on, Matt. Really pleased to be here. 

Matt Nally: That’s great to have you just to give us a bit of background as to who you are. And then we can introduce what we’re going to talk about today.

Nina Young: Yeah, sure. My name is Nina Young. I am the founder of Surveys UK. We are a new membership platform for the surveying profession and the wider industry in the UK. Currently at a stage where we’re literally rolling out the site as we speak, but I’ve predominantly got a very strong marketing background and for my Which I don’t tell many people.

I’m also a chartered accountant. 

Matt Nally: Ah, yeah. A lot of people want to keep that quiet. I don’t know.

Do stay tuned.

That’s an interesting background. So that’s an interesting one then. So we’re going to talk about new talent trouble in a moment. And that’ll probably tie in with the student group that you’ve been running. But how did you go from, chartered accountancy and marketing into. It’s 

Nina Young: Evolved really.

A chartered accountant in my early years moved into risk management and auditing mainly within the corporate sector, did a short stint in public sector. And then I ended up having a total career change because I got to a stage where I moved up and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do next.

Hindsight, looking back, I was always destined to work for myself. So I left the sort of corporate world and moved into recruitment and marketing. I’m very much a self taught marketeer. And then over the years I’ve run different businesses and I’ve helped other people set up businesses. Having the chartered account background really helps with that.

It gives you that kind of really good business grounding. And then things have just evolved and I just seemed to reinvent myself every so often. 

Matt Nally: That’s good to do. I think you’re right. I think having a a focus on the numbers is important because it gives you a reality check as to whether what you’re going to do.

Cashflow is king, 

Nina Young: isn’t it? In your own business. Cashflow is really king. Yeah. 

Matt Nally: And definitely sales don’t match up with cashflow at all. So it’s two different things. 

Nina Young: Yeah, very true. Very different. 

Matt Nally: Awesome. Okay. So I suppose from there, how did you get into the surveying world and starting up this, the student group?

Nina Young: Yeah. It was one of those things. I think this happened to a lot of people. It was during COVID. So I had in a different industry, I had a a job board, a career site for a different industry. But it was within the hospitality drinks sector and with COVID it wiped it out.

So we’d gone from having 2, 000 jobs a month to 20. And, but at that time, I’d already been doing before then property flips, I have a passion for stately homes rented properties. So I’ve always had that real interest in the built environment anyway. And then I literally discovered that there was such a thing as this.

Sarva course, and I was able to train as a surveyor, a residential surveyor and valuer. So I jumped onto that very early on this idea, survey UK came to my head. And, but I put it, put that on the back burner for a little bit and then became a surveying student and we’re on lots of, there was lots of WhatsApp groups.

Students really need, you want to bounce ideas off each other or, you’re getting maybe a challenging case study or something like this, but the WhatsApp groups are really difficult because they just come and they just disappear and when you’ve got lots of people on there, some of them like 200, you can’t keep up and your phone’s just pinging.

And I thought don’t we need a dedicated area for students to be able to ask questions and have surveyors on there as well to support students? So then I set up I ran it past a few industry leaders and I set up the student surveyors group on Facebook and then we, it just took off. We’re about nearly three, We’ve got 3, 000 members now, but we have everyone from surveyors, qualified surveyors, professionals, supporting students.

And then we’ve got not just undergrads, postgrads, and that just grew over time. And it’s just this really supportive community. 

Matt Nally: Interesting. I suppose the context for this topic at the moment then is new talent trouble, which is what we’ve outlined and I suppose it’s quite a good. Point to introduce it because obviously we’re talking about your journey into surveying.

What was the reason for starting out the student group then in terms of off the back of the the WhatsApps? Was that, was it, was the pain point just being able to chat to each other or was there other aspects that led you to going, we need another forum of some sort? 

Nina Young: I guess I brought, I guess I brought it from my own background of, building communities and, bringing people together.

And I guess that’s one aspect was, the ability to ask questions, but I didn’t feel there was anywhere because I know many students wouldn’t dare asking questions, say on LinkedIn, you wouldn’t go. Oh, what is this defect and put yourself out there because it’s a very public area, public platform.

And I felt it needed, there wasn’t a group where I felt there was the support and feeling you could ask questions. But then also another area that I thought was really important is finding a mentor, finding someone to shadow. I found a counsellor, and for me it was easy. I had a strong network. I asked questions on LinkedIn.

I got three mentors very quickly, but so many of my peers, so many of my other students didn’t. And so I was like maybe if we also grow this group, that was another opportunity to bring surveyors on board. And yet so many have found mentors and shadowing through that group now. You just post and then talk about careers and they talk about, just challenges they’re having, but a big part I’ve noticed with the Facebook group is that a lot of people join.

And one of the questions when they join is, They have the option of, are you a student, are you a surveyor, et cetera, or are you thinking of training to be a surveyor? Lots join just with that. And so we get lots of people joining who aren’t a surveyor, who are asking about courses, who are asking about pathways.

And so we have people on there that know those areas and they answer all these questions. So it’s also helping support potential new, future surveyors on there as well. 

Matt Nally: That’s interesting then, from what you’re seeing in terms of the number of people that are signing up under that level of looking to go into it.

Do you think where, I know that’ll be a snapshot of the overall market. Cause if it’s not going to be absolutely everyone, but are you seeing. A trend of more and more people signing up as in, we’re getting more interest in potentially new surveyors coming through or is it stable, plateauing, going down?

I think, 

Nina Young: I think over the past few years it’s increasing. I think more and more there’s, I think there’s a lot of work that’s happening out in the industry at the moment. Within, the professional bodies, within colleges, there is so much university, so much work going on to try and help elevate the profession, which is one of the things that we aim to do with Surveys UK as well, is bring that together.

But I am noticing, I’m seeing an increase in awareness. I think things are starting to filter through with all the early engagement work that’s happening through schools. There’s so much going on, but I think we need a lot more. I still think there’s, we’ve got a way to go because we’ve got this, big gap between all these amazing, amazingly skilled experienced surveyors, they’re retiring and we’re losing that knowledge.

I always say to people, I want to be able to download their brains because they have incredible knowledge and then they’re just retiring. And then you’ve got a bit of a gap in the middle and then you’ve got the new entrance starting to pick up. So we we are very short skilled as is for example, other areas like construction, there is definitely a shortage of new talent.

Coming in, but I think it’s Gradually improving bit by bit. 

Matt Nally: Yeah. It’s interesting to hear cause we did a a podcast episode with Sarah Noble from the RACS around early engagement. So that’s, yeah, that’s a good episode to go listen to if people want to hear about how they can get involved in that side of things too, but but yeah it’s, you’re right.

It’s difficult to see. Immediately the impact of those types of things. Cause anyone at school has to go through the process of finishing and, moving on to other things et cetera. So it’s, there are lag times on those initiatives, it’s not an immediate yeah, uptick you’re going to see.

So it’s, yeah, it’s good to hear that it’s seems to be having a positive effect, I think. I think it 

Nina Young: is. And I think there are also changes within, I’ve heard, people talking of trying to address. This area by introducing surveying within our existing topics at school.

So within geography, so talking to some people who are looking to how do you just build it in because you would just have a surveying, GCC or whatever, but looking at how, we talk about urban geography and the built environment. So why don’t we have just even just a little section on surveying?

Matt Nally: So it 

Nina Young: picks it up because I want to, I actually did consider to look to be a surveyor actually before I went to university. But I found it really, I went to, to meet someone like a state home. He was an estate manager and he was a surveyor and, but it was just so fuddy duddy and very old school that it didn’t attract me.

So I didn’t do that route. 

Matt Nally: It’s interesting because I felt the same at school. I was interested in property industry, very broad, I’m interested in it generally, but when it came to looking at the surveying route, so for me, it was more where to start because there are so many different avenues you can go down onto the surveying residential commercial.

Yeah. I just didn’t know where to begin. 

Nina Young: Yeah, that’s something we’re seeing a lot of. And obviously with what we’re doing, it was the case for all surveying disciplines, but I’ve talked to so many students who they’re doing, let’s say a generic building surveying degree, but they don’t know. Which avenue to go down and they want to have the experience they want to have, maybe they maybe want to go into something like infrastructure or like you say or commercial bit more commercial side, but they’re not sure.

And it’s how do you get that experience, and another big area is apprenticeships, which I think that’s growing. So I’m talking to different course providers and there’s a lot of steer towards that as another route. That seems to be on the increase, definitely. So I think that’s positive because I think people learn differently and I think it’s good to have all different options than the typical degree, 

Matt Nally: I completely agree.

I don’t think that the degree route is necessarily right for quite a lot of people and not in terms of, are they good enough to do it, but is that how they learn, is that how they are motivated cost, like so many different factors. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think it’s really important that we start yeah, building up the number of different routes into into surveying and other industries.

But it’s, I think it’s more of a societal question to that. Yeah, it’s 

Nina Young: a whole thing. I think there’s a whole thing around, promoting and showcasing, surveying as a career. There is so much going on and there’s so much amazing people out there that are doing brilliant things. And it’s but where do you need to spread that awareness of that?

And then I see a lot of professional organizations or bodies. They do, they’re doing certain things, but they’re all doing it separately. And it’s I want a place where we can bring that together and share that you do realize they’re already doing this. So why don’t you, I think 

Matt Nally: That was a point we discussed actually on, on the early engagement episode, which is potentially there’s a fear of different people doing their own thing because, what happens if you take my candidate or, potential candidate down the line and stuff like that, but ultimately there’s always going to be some switching.

So yes, you might lose some of yours, but you’ll gain some of the others. And ultimately you create a bigger pie by working together not by trying to, That’s it. And I think, 

Nina Young: yeah, and I think everyone has different ways of their, everyone has their own sort of objectives and agendas for what they want to achieve with certain memberships and things, but they all provide things in different ways.

It’s such a vast area and it’s quite mind boggling as to, how many different routes you can go down, but you can also don’t have to necessarily stay in one thing either. You can then change later on or. I see, and hear a lot about now where someone’s decided they don’t want to do that area anymore.

They’re just going to focus on this niche or. 

Matt Nally: Yeah, definitely. But we’ve started talking about this topic earlier, but one of the questions I want to ask is what are the challenges students are facing? You must be seeing day to day what people are talking about on the group in terms of general trends.

What’s the sort of, I suppose the biggest three issues do you think? And then we can maybe talk about afterwards how people can help with those, but 

Nina Young: I think it’s confusion over roots and how you go about it which, what you do, which pathways whether you do the degree or. There’s obviously the apprenticeship options and you’ve got things like SAVA, that’s obviously specifically residential surveying and valuation.

I think it’s also, the whole for example, if we look at the RICS, there’s the ASSOC RICS pathway and, how then to become chartered. And there’s a lot of challenges as to, I think that’s all been looked at. I do believe that’s been looked at the moment and that will be great, but there is a lot of confusion over how do you.

Get to the chartered route and not necessarily just through a degree pathway. And that’s such a common question on the group is, do I go down this route? Or do I go down that route? That’s like very common. Yeah. 

Matt Nally: I think with that, yeah. The important thing as well is not knowing, not just knowing what’s the right route, but also what’s my way back if it’s the wrong route and what does it give me and what does it not give me?

It’s that you’re right. It’s all that clarity around. And I get, it’s a very difficult thing to do because it is such a. An expansive vocation in terms of the types of things you can go into. But equally, yeah that, I suppose the part of the challenge is once you solve that, it’s clear of people for how they come into the industry, what their routes are, what they can and can’t do, how they backpedal to go into another route.

Nina Young: Yeah. And it’s that experience of getting a taster for something. And I think it’s enabling, and this is what the group that the student group has enabled is that it’s basically enabled people to have a chat with surveyors, get an idea of. It’s also just that, just having, what is the day in the life of, these routes?

What does that involve? Whether it be, not just the building surveying route, but quantity surveying, commercial surveying. What does that actually involve in reality, as opposed to you read it online and this is what you do as a job? But actually, what does it involve? And I think there are so many good resources out there that you can find on different areas where people have done videos about it.

And, people, newly qualifieds going out, or students, and you can see what they do. And they’re out with the hard hats on site, as a new quantity surveyor, for example. And it’s but people need to see that. I think students need to see a bit more of that. It’s not just, and the work life balance, what does the actual job involve?

The hours, the commitment, because I think there’s a bit of misunderstanding about that, and some roles are far more desk based and some are much more field based, but there is a broad range between the two. That’s 

Matt Nally: a very good point on the point of getting out in the field to experience it, I suppose that touches on the difficulty you’ve already mentioned around getting mentoring or shadowing, whether it’s during your course to be able to sign things off or whether it’s.

Beforehand, just to go, is this the right thing? What’s the driver do you think that’s causing people to, or firms not to offer those opportunities? 

Nina Young: I think there’s a number of things going on. I think a lot of it can be down to, obviously you’re bigger firms tend to have something set up for that and they actively do encourage it.

And some brilliant ones can be really supportive and they just literally Go out to get that, they want people to get on board because then with the proviso that over time they’ll like the experience and then they’ll become employees in the future. However, I think it’s demand on time. So a lot of the areas, obviously I have a lot of exposure to is within sort of the building, surveying, residential surveying area.

And I think with smaller firms, you go out on site and I’ve heard this a lot. When you have someone shadowing you. Even if they’re not particularly, interrupting, but you’re teaching, your survey doubles in time, it literally takes twice as long. And then that’s affecting, that business.

If it’s a small business, that’s income. And I think it’s all like expectations and it’s, and misunderstandings between the two. So students knowing what to expect and then surveyors setting out the parameters when they’re out and about, what will I provide? What will this be? This is just some shadowing work and you go out and about and you ask questions and then you’ve got the full on mentoring, which is much more involved.

So I think a demand on time is a big one. Yeah, I think that’s probably one of the number one. That really stands out for me and also misunderstanding, surveyors feeling they’re not used to it. They’re not used to teaching somebody. So they’re actually nervous as well.

I’ve seen that. They’re actually comfortable. They’re so experienced, but they’re not used to having someone for them to then suddenly be able to Almost be a teacher and show them what they’re doing and explain it in a way that the student will understand. So I think there’s some of that as well.

But what I will say is there are so many surveyors that are willing to do it. Yeah. There are so many that I speak to and it’s one of the areas that we really want to address through the platform, through Survey uk where people. Professionals will be able to opt in to be a mentor. So then they’ll have literally a mentoring badge, so over time they’ll be able to search.

A student will be able to search a directory for mentors in their area, so that we can help match them up. That will obviously take time, and that will be as the site grows, but if we could tackle that area, that would be fantastic. Brilliant. But there’s the whole side of it is how you go and find a mentor, isn’t there, and, the right questions.

Matt Nally: Yeah I think we’ll come on to that in terms of how to ask about finding a mentor, but I think one of the things points you made actually is quite an opportunity on the flip side for surveyors. So where you’re. Potentially looking at it as it’s going to take me longer. Or will I be able to explain things in a good enough way?

Actually, there’s two benefits that could come from that. Just those two points. One, one is it makes you stop and think about how you’re going about your process. Is there better ways of doing things on site as the questions pop up? It makes you think outside your routine. 

Nina Young: Yeah, true. 

Matt Nally: The other is if you can’t explain something to someone on site.

That you’re working with in a simple way, you’re probably needing to review how you’re writing the reports, because if you can’t explain it to someone there and then visually, when they’re pointing at the building, it’s another thing to get it in writing. So it starts to help you potentially consider different ways of.

of communicating something. Yeah, 

Nina Young: it’s a really good point. It’s getting things across and, complex things or in a more layman’s terms, because the end reader of that report does not have that technical and a student may not have that technical. Knowledge either yet.

So yeah that’s a really good point. 

Matt Nally: Yeah. So it’s just, I think for me, it’s different ways of looking at it. But then again, it’s, down to how much do you want to commit? You don’t have to be doing every single survey. It could be once a quarter, once every two months. Yeah. It’s 

Nina Young: managing expectations between them, not communication and going, I can commit to this, but that is all I can do.

And then also I do know some students can expect too much on the other side. So it’s that marry up between the two. 

Matt Nally: And I think 

Nina Young: some guidance on both is something we want. We need to have. We need to basically promote 

Matt Nally: definitely on the point you were about to make before I started to cut you off.

So sorry for that. Was I suppose students sometimes asking in the wrong way. So if they’re things that you see people do well, or students do well, students do not so well in terms of the way they ask for what they’re, Trying to find in terms of mentoring and 

Nina Young: Yeah, very much. And one of the biggest mediums that students currently try and find someone is through LinkedIn.

And a lot of what I see is that only recently as well is where that, for example, if you’re a surveyor and you get a message on LinkedIn or you see something and someone’s I’m looking for a mentor in this area, but their profile doesn’t tell them, tell you anything about them. Cause I’ve seen that.

That’s that’s not going to help your case. But what I also see is not enough information. So people don’t put where are they based or what they’re currently doing, what they’re currently studying. What I’ve noticed is a really good, the really good a good approach is where students like, Looking for some mentoring, I’ve even seen that I’m happy to hold your equipment, I’ll get you a coffee, and it’s that kind of two way.

It’s I’m not just gonna demand all your time, it’s a two way thing. And I know of students that have got involved helping out with desktop research. And that kind of thing as part of it. And so that’s helping. So I think it needs to be seen also as a bit of a two way. And I think those posts or those communications where the student is giving good information about themselves, positive keen.

I think that really helps. 

Matt Nally: Yeah, I think that’s a very valid point, actually, because you’re more incentivized to help someone where they’re helping themselves, but also if they are able to help you in some way, then that reduces the burden of it. Yeah, and 

Nina Young: It’s that keenness and excitement.

And I think somebodies love that. You do, and you want to impart your knowledge. You want to do that. And I think where someone’s put something and taking the time to write, that also tells you something about somebody. Not just, can you help? No, question mark. I need a mentor.

It’s what does that mean? And also outlining what it is you’re looking for and saying it’s only maybe once a week, or I’m happy with a small amount, just something would be good because then you can get experience with more than one. You don’t have to have just the one survey. Cause I, I didn’t when I was doing it so that I wasn’t demanding lots of time and they all work differently.

So you learn different things. 

Matt Nally: And it helps you then see that not everyone, there isn’t a perfect way to do it. That it’s what works for you. 

Nina Young: Yeah. Having seen the different ones. So trying different ones and getting more than one is better as well, I think. 

Matt Nally: I think there’s been some really interesting points you’ve raised.

Yeah, around all that. I suppose to round this topic off, before we move on to Yeah. What’s what is surveyors UK and what it’s helping to do with the industry generally what do you think is the biggest challenge then around getting new talent into the industry and where people might be able to support that?

Nina Young: I think there is an overarching challenge whereby generally. People do not know what a surveyor is and what a surveyor does. People know what an accountant is, a solicitor, a lawyer, a doctor, these professions. Whereas, even when I start to do the training, I get blank faces from some friends what’s that?

And then I talk to so many people and it’s like a big what does that mean? And so much confusion and misconception over what a surveyor is, and it, because it’s such a huge, so many different types of surveyor, it’s, I think, that hampers things because then, if you don’t grow up anyone talking about, Oh, what if you want to be a surveyor or, instead of being a doctor, a lawyer, solicitor, or any of these, which people talk about through school, through university, you don’t, people don’t talk about, why don’t you become a surveyor?

What that is. And I think that’s a big issue. And I think there’s a lot of people just don’t know what surveyors do. 

Matt Nally: Interesting. I think yeah I think that’s a nice point to wrap up. I think for anyone looking to see how they can help with. Answering that question as to what is surveying and what is a surveyor and helping younger generations coming through.

We did a really interesting episode on yeah, early engagement with Sarah, as I mentioned earlier. So that’s one to check out and you can see how you can get involved in that side. But no, really interesting.

We we’ll move on to topic two, but so tune in for that.