The graduate surveyor route to the RICS APC: then & now

You both came to surveying & to your professional studies through what, historically, is the conventional route didn’t you?

OB: Yes. I qualified with a BSc (Hons) in Real Estate Management and worked for a smaller multi-disciplinary agency in Cambridge for five and a half years before joining Eddisons in 2022 as a graduate surveyor working towards my full membership accreditation with the RICS - the MRICS qualification.

BG: My first degree was in Geography and I completed a Masters in Land Management, graduating from the University of Reading in 1998. I worked in the West End & City of London offices of Chesterton while studying for my APC accreditation gained in 2001.

APC accreditation focuses on core competencies, is that right?

BG: It does, but in my mentoring & counselling role with our graduates, I admit that there is a lot of drilling down of what were generic core competencies while I was studying and, now, there is a lot more slicing & dicing of demonstrable skills which are recognised as stand-alone core competencies.

OB: Indeed. There are core competencies but the level of detail of understanding & practice we need to show we understand and apply appears to be a lot more nuanced and numeric in number than it was, historically.

Talk us through your experience of the formal RICS process of study of achieving APC accreditation?

OB: As I understand it, nowadays, it’s very much a choice of what RICS calls ‘pathways’ to achieve it - whereas, previously, it was more prescriptive and there was one route only. I’ve chosen the 24-month structured training commercial real estate pathway. 

I report, submit and diarise through an online RICS dashboard that’s dedicated to the APC accreditation process. My final panel interview will take place online through Microsoft Teams.

BG: It’s the process, rather than the substance of study that has changed. I too had to document & submit ‘stuff’ in the way Ollie does, but all my documentation went via email. There are so many resources to support study available online for Ollie & his peers - no referring to big, physical reference textbooks as in my APC day.

My panel interview was in person, conducted in a hotel conference room at Heathrow Airport.

OB: Conducting the panel interview via Teams was something that came in during Covid and has been maintained post-Covid. 

In speaking with senior colleagues, I can see how something might be lost in not ‘being in the room’. However, as in commercial practice these days, it makes you aware that you have to really concentrate in looking for cues from participants when you’re in the virtual room as opposed to actually in the physical room. So it’s a skill we develop in day-to-day practice that we just have to accommodate when it comes to other professional scenarios such as the APC panel. 

BG: It’s definitely an additional skill that this generation of practitioners have to cope with in the way that us, more senior colleagues, did not have to think about when it came to the APC panel.

It’s all part of the digital expectation of the surveying practice that is the default modern commercial experience, particularly post-Covid.

Share your experiences of how supported you feel, or felt, your practices were in assisting your professional studies?

BG: I was fortunate in working for a large agency with contrasting office locations in London. The experience of its West End versus its City offices gave me a great breadth of understanding in all commercial sectors and professional surveying disciplines. 

The firm was very supportive and that may well have been because of its size, but not exclusively so. Any decent firm will see the value of having the most professionally qualified and accredited staff it can.

OB: I have a learning contract with Eddisons and it supports me in a number of ways. I have a dedicated mentor & counsellor for my APC; the firm runs workshops and seminars where APC-ers from across the country can come together to focus on specific elements of our study as well as networking with peers. The firm also offers ‘mock panel interview’ scenarios and will cover fees for professional exams & membership, plus study leave.

I can see how, in a large firm, there’s a danger of getting pigeon-holed in one aspect of surveying practice, yet at Eddisons I get to experience the full range of the disciplines.

BG: While Ollie is taking advantage of what could be seen as the conventional route of the graduate surveyor option, the beauty of progressive firms employers, such as Eddisons, is that they are open to every & all options to support & secure the best qualified professional employees. Whether that be in surveying or other professional property or office disciplines.

In my early career, the degree apprenticeship route to surveying and professional accreditation was simply not available. The most forward-looking practices see such complementary schemes working in tandem with the more conventional graduate recruitment schemes. 

With a shrinking demographic from which to recruit bright, new, young talent, it’s incumbent upon the profession to use as many routes as possible to attract, retain & reward the next generation of property professionals.