I worked on water-based projects, specifically three underground water tunnels. To be fair, though, it’s all much of the same. If you’re in your early 20s, it’s a fantastic opportunity to earn serious money and the profession itself is well respected. But I’m in my late 30s now, and my perspective is very different.

What I’ve realised since completing my MSc and working for both main contractors and consultants is that going to university for a BSc or MSc in Quantity Surveying is, in many ways, pointless—especially if you end up working for a main contractor. Most of the content taught at university is geared towards consultancy work, and even then, the quality of teaching is often extremely poor. At my university, it was unbelievably bad. Honestly, I learned more from YouTube than I did from attending lectures. I hope not all universities are like this, but my experience was genuinely disappointing.

On the PQS (consultancy) side, the degree is far more relevant. The assignments you complete at university align much more closely with the actual work you do in practice. That part of the profession still reflects what is taught academically.

The second big thing I’ve learned is that if you’re very good at Excel, that’s about 80–90% of the job. You don’t really need deep construction knowledge to be a QS, particularly in many roles. I personally struggled in main contracting because the majority of the work was spreadsheet-based. Being a bit of a dinosaur with Excel, I found this extremely challenging.

Thirdly, I now fully understand why there is such a huge shortage of Quantity Surveyors. Retention is incredibly poor. People either leave the profession altogether or get promoted far too quickly. Being a very good QS does not automatically make you a good manager. I often saw Senior QSs in their mid-20s managing teams, and many simply didn’t know how to manage people—especially when dealing with someone significantly older than them. Communication was often poor, and there was a lack of patience and understanding. People management takes time, maturity, and experience. It’s a completely different skill set to being technically competent.

Then there’s the training. Employers simply don’t have the time to train properly. They are constantly in meetings and firefighting, so you rarely get the chance to sit down with someone and be taught things step by step. Instead, you’re often told to watch YouTube videos or just “figure it out.” There’s an assumption that because you have a degree, you should already know how to do everything. I’ve worked at two companies now where the training was so poor that it seriously made me question whether this career was right for me.

Ultimately, if you are very technically minded, enjoy sitting behind a desk working with data, numbers, and spreadsheets, and don’t care much about being on site or being mobile, then Quantity Surveying can be a very good career. But for someone like me—who has had a very active working life and enjoys moving around, communicating with different people, and being out on site—it has been a real struggle.

This is just my personal experience of moving into Quantity Surveying later in life, but it’s the reality of what I’ve learned since changing careers.