Quantity Surveying Apprentice Review

I work for Mace on the Sainsbury's account and my roles involves measurement and costing for stores within the United kingdom. I look through forecasts, excel documents to separate costs to ensure that they are spent within the correct budget and aim to keep them under budget. I attend the stores I work on frequently.

I believe that I have developed loads of skills from computer skills including word, Auto CAD, Revit etc. to general construction knowledge and terminology related to the retail industry. I believe that my confidence has grown massively since gaining better relationships with client and contractors and have improved my communication skills also.

I enjoy the programme a lot as I believe that I have grown massively over the last couple of months into my role and feel more confident with my day-to-day activities. I enjoy going to university as I feel that I am in an environment whee I learn and have a very good group of colleagues that I get on with well.

I believe that my programme is structured well as I know what I am doing and able to find myself work to do if not provided to me. I always ensure that I get the best out of myself every day to ensure that I am meeting my development goals.

I believe that I receive a reasonable amount of support from my employer whereby my line manager stays in contact with me and I also have a platform with the Emerging Talent community to attend different construction sites to improve my construction knowledge. I make sure that I attend these when I have availability.

I find that London South Bank University have been okay with helping my meet my qualification targets. I have found that Construction Technology & Materials has been poor in terms of their lecture delivery whereby the information has been done by someone else previously and they are simply reading 80+ slides from the screen rather than engaging with the room. The module leader has also ignored emails regarding the end of semester exam which was disappointing considering the fact that we were not told that our exam would be done for a set date and time opposed to being able to complete it within a week like normal. It was also bad that LSBU hadn't considered that it would be a bad idea to hold the exam on a Monday when we are scheduled to be working with our employers opposed to our study-day Friday.

I believe that London South Bank University have helped me to perform better in my role by significantly increasing my construction knowledge. I think that it would be good if we had more material about contracts as it would give me more exposure to learning about when each contract is relevant.

Mace hold regular events in our Sainsbury's commission including Team Building days, Volunteering days, comms sessions, end of year parties etc. there are also over areas where you are able to get involved with different people from different units. As part of the emerging talent community, I have partaken in some of these.

Yes

I would recommend Mace to a friend as they have always supported me and my goals. I have taken an unnatural approach but have been able to start from the bottom of the company and work my way up to be able to deliver more for Mace within my new role.

I would advise people looking at Mace to look at where they want to be in a few years and if Mace are able to fulfill your goals which would be likely. I would encourage them to go outside of their comfort zone like I did to really try to embrace improvement.