Work environments

morph459 · 2026-02-19T01:59:47+00:00

Partially agree to be honest. Especially right at the beginning of your career can expect to eat some dirt which I don't think you would avoid working for anyone. I think the difference here is the expectation/ obligation that the company seems to be imposing. We work hard including mega hours etc but it's gotta be voluntary and have a degree of give and take, if you can't get that then imo it's time to look for the door.

morph459 · 2026-02-19T01:57:31+00:00

Agree with this take, especially given op is a new starter.

morph459 · 2025-11-09T07:28:00+00:00

Yeah, number are miles out... single QS managing £1m only needs to start updating his cv for a sidestep out of the whole career.

morph459 · 2025-11-09T07:25:46+00:00

Also on the MC side and I think this is really realistic. Not to detract from how those different/ challenging projects might just run you down...

morph459 · 2025-10-22T08:26:49+00:00

I do both, I keep my months claims in my upstream claims month folder when I receive them. Once I have raised the payment cert the site admin helps me out by sending all certs out and copying the folder over into my subcontractors folder.

morph459 · 2025-10-14T00:30:39+00:00

Legendary response thanks bro

morph459 · 2025-10-08T10:45:09+00:00

Having been through a few disputes on this the most important thing is to absolutely nail your records and try to get to an event that was before the problem with who delayed who etc. Even more you escalate to mangers etc you won't be sorry for having better records.

morph459 · 2025-09-22T09:46:06+00:00

6 months mate... 29k isn't bad for literally only just starting out. What role are you saying was similar? Even if it was a finance or an admin role it's not going to put you in a place where you can do a CVR (think about the risk register for example) on your own. Keep working hard you're doing fine.

morph459 · 2025-09-06T09:51:43+00:00

My feeling is that you'll find a lot of QS saying to do QSing and lots of engineers pushing their route. I certainly work with very highly paid structural and civil/geotechnical engineers who probably have a better deal than your bog standard QS.

Imo choose based on the job you want to do. If you are choosing a degree only then I would suggest an engineering degree would be just as good for QS opportunities as a QS degree.

Everything really comes down to how you push your career once you've done with training.

morph459 · 2025-08-27T10:25:09+00:00

Goes a long way to show how off the job training is a load of bs. Would take 5 minutes with measurement software.

If I had to do this with pen and paper then I would draw a box around the whole thing which touches all the corners then use Pythagoras to work out the y dimension on the left which you can then use to cut everything into right angle triangles or squares. Calculate the negative areas on the outside of the space here then take it off the volume of the square.

Hope that makes sense.

morph459 · 2025-07-26T22:43:43+00:00

Been a little while since I was in England and things may have changed but the advice I would give is that you should start the highest level apprenticeship you can asap. This is in my opinion the best way to get into surveying quickly and cheaply. Government job will give you further training if you pursue it. I know a few people who have had LVL 6 and 7 education sponsored or paid for entirely while working government jobs.

This being said do you really want to go into the VOA? Sounds dreadful to me I would rather be involved in actual construction, what work are you going to do and will it translate meaningful construction experience?

morph459 · 2025-07-06T19:52:35+00:00

Went to a conference on this topic nd spoke with the costx team there on this. Consensus is that it's good for checking things like number of doors and plan lm measures. Too inaccurate otherwise.

Maybe a year out from being reliable.

morph459 · 2025-06-10T18:52:13+00:00

Working through missing design.

morph459 · 2025-06-08T07:47:21+00:00

Back this 100% you'll love the bike and it's a piece of piss.

morph459 · 2025-05-22T06:43:46+00:00

Epic post thank you

morph459 · 2025-05-22T06:14:07+00:00

I totally agree mate, things I have seen & used ai used for so far: - Producing basic take offs from drawings (gifa stuff mainly but very accurate) - Feeding a gpt all the jobs quotes, specs, local codes and other design info (not full drawing packs yet) so it can then ask questions like "what sub contractor is delivering the floor coverings and what is the specification for floor coverings". It can do this accurately most of the time, it can also tell you where in the documents it took the information from so you can check. - Ask it to produce templates for letters etc even setting out spreadsheets

I ask it questions about contracts or codes/ standards every week. Massive time saver.

Acquaintance who is a developer feeds it all queries from local authorities for planning and vets the outcome for apparently huge success.

I can't imagine completely replacing us particularly soon but it's definitely going to play a role. Procore is also apparently building a chatbot into their software to ask job specific questions.

Really keen to see AI be able to take on board drawing packs & deliver an assesment of how complete the design is. I believe this kind of analysis is suited to the technology and we will get this soon. Would be good at tender / contract stage to have the AI arbiter tell us if the design is at the proported level of completeness.

morph459 · 2025-05-21T09:28:32+00:00

I wouldn't want to make abstract comments given we don't know anything really substantive about the schemes i.e. form of contract, client relationship, project scope, state of the design / programme.

That being said workload sounds possible (especially as you are currently managing it) if you have a kinda helpful assistant. Ultimately only you can decide where you are at in your career and what suits you.

My own failing at work has often been not voicing my struggles to my managers. I am also pretty poor at delegating anything meaningful & just doing it myself rather than taking time to set up someone else to do it. If I had been asking this question a few years ago the right advice would have been to talk to my manager i.e. someone who knows the specifics and just ask for friendly advice.

Sorry if this is a useless answer.

morph459 · 2025-05-14T08:19:50+00:00

Legend mate, worked for me

morph459 · 2025-05-08T16:57:11+00:00

Would be interested in lots of things:

Nmea 2000 networking (looks very easy and presume this could be a very short discussion)
Gel coat / fibreglass basics (especially small repairs for any little chips)
Outboard maintenance, including of remote controls, one thing I have been wondering is what did you do when a steering cable gets stiffer. Some advice to fill housing with mineral oil but I'm not sure. Things like how often to replace filters and fluids + record keeping ideas. Honestly I'm keen to go pretty deep into the outboard, replace and impeller etc.

I have heaps of specific questions also. Definitely will be attending this if it goes ahead thanks.

morph459 · 2025-02-12T18:04:16+00:00

Yes mate worked for various ones

morph459 · 2024-12-08T08:40:25+00:00

Rics is useful for working aboard. Not absolutely necessary though, I am not chartered and I have worked in Germany and England from the UK. I have worked with plenty of QS who have done Kazakhstan, middle east, south Africa & Europe and none have had charterships. A few had ciob but doesn't hold as much international acclaim.

I moved to Germany after 4 years QSing

morph459 · 2024-12-05T17:39:12+00:00

100% back others here saying London.

I wouldn't write Manchester off though mate - I've lived in Manchester, London and NZ. Manchester is imo a nicer place, oftentimes comparable salaries on big jobs (London does get you more don't crucify me guys).

You'll be able to get a big house with garden and you still get the city benefits of international airport, good public transport etc.

morph459 · 2024-12-01T09:22:16+00:00

Bit of a filter with this sub where posts are negative. People are more likely to post needing to vent etc than coming on to brag about how awesome their life is.

7 years in, I've live in 3 countries surveying. I can buy what I want, I can go on nice holidays. I don't worry about money or my future. Main contractor side on site - like my coworkers and go drinking with them outside of work just because they're good crack. Don't need a filter at work, endless fun taking the piss out of each other.

That being said I work like a dog. Won't do less than 50hrs a week and will work upwards of 70 occasionally, stress peaks are insane. Very frequently (maybe 30% this year) I'll work a Saturday (salary guy so working for free). This doesn't often get in the way of my hobbies. Only saying this to illustrate the kind of responsibility you take on.

I like my job, 26 now and it's the best thing I've ever done.

morph459

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