Apprentice Quantity surveyor Review

As a quantity surveyor, everyday is different. You must have good relationships with suppliers, subcontractors and the workers on site. Day to day task involves, paying sub-contractors. Raising orders with suppliers based on what is requested from the engineers and site workers. Other tasks involve are: checking current spend and forecast and making sure that all payments, invoices are up to date.

As a Quantity surveyor you are always in constant communication with staff, suppliers and sub-contractors, therefore i can say that i have developed my communication skills, not only by i.e emailing but also being able to talk to people over the phone and being formal. Excel is another area, where i have developed my skills/knowledge in as throughout the day various tasks are to be completed usually using Microsoft Excel.

The programme is a college bloc apprenticeship, meaning that we have a few weeks at college, which is currently in Leeds and then around a year of site placement. This does give you the university experience too as most people will live away from home during college placement, only difference is that you will get paid.

The programme is well orgainsed. From day one I could see how much effort was put in to make a transformation from school life to work life very smoothly. We have constant emails regarding any update within the programme by the coordinator. there is a timeline of how the year will progress for us include how long we would be on a college placement and site placement.

We have a several of contact that we could get in touch if we have any problems that we are facing at work. Within our first two months on site placement, we had a visit by the early careers team and had a informal chat about how we were getting along and if we had any issue. We can also easily contact not only the early careers team but also the team onsite that are very supportive and friendly.

Our training provider is in Leeds and we do have contacts with our tutors. They are extremely supportive to us as they know that we are new to the course/industry and understand that we have a limited time to complete a college bloc. As they are aware of this they will be giving up couple of hours of their own time in order to help anyone who want i.e. a final check before submission or a help with a specific question.

We don't only get taught the theory base of the industry at college. As the tutors are within the industry, they all have work experience within different jobs in the industry. They reflect this onto their teaching and give real life examples. It is also an advantage for us as we could ask the tutors questions about i.e. what to expect on site.

We have a mentoring event, where an apprentice gets appointed to another worker in the company, this could be anyone working anywhere in different areas. We have informal meetings and talk about work, social life etc. Its just a away of getting a couple of hours out from work and just getting in touch with someone and freely talking about anything you want.

Yes

I believe it is a wonderful opportunity. You get paid, work experience and the qualifications to secure your future. It is also debt free making it a life changing opportunity. You do also get a University experience as well, from living away from home so I would say that it is a wonderful opportunity to consider.

Be honest with everything an show that you have the passion to take the challenge because it is not easy. You will no longer be a student. No six weeks of summer holiday, you will be entering the real life. You will be given responsibilities and be given the pressure, therefore if you believe that you can complete all these tasks then nothing is stopping you.