What shall I train as? Quantity Surveyor or Health & Safety Officer.

[PorshainthePorsche]

Hi, I thought I’d come & ask you successful ladies for some career advice, hoping some of you would be kind enough to share your 2 cents.

I’m turning 23 soon & need to really fix up. I left school at 16 had a few low skilled jobs, went to college for 3 days & dropped out lol, 18 I found the world of self employment & fell in love with my chosen job thinking I’d want to do it till I was old HA! Yeah right.

For the past few years I’ve been saying I want a career, I’m thinking Quantity surveyor or Health & Safety officer or project management or HGV driving.
The world is my oyster I have no responsibilities other than my car & a few meagre bills at home.
I like being around people & socialising for a few hours, I’m VERY detail oriented & I excel in consulting & helping people get stuff done. If I do something I’m gonna be the best but I’m at a cross roads & a bit confused which road to take.

I guess I’m looking for first hand accounts & experiences really, salary, work life balance, path into it, did you regret or love your decision.

Thanks ladies.

Health and safety officer generally is better done with some more working life experience, often as a cross over from something else.

Project manager often th same.

QS is a solid foundation.

There are loads of Project Managers and H&S Advisors in the market, they're easy jobs to fill. Good Quantity Surveyors are blooming hard to find though so I'd definitely go that route. I recruit for all 3 roles regularly.

‘Ladies’ 🤮

You really need a degree, so you’d be wise to look for a trainee or apprenticeship position where you can be sponsored.

QS degree apprentiships exist. I'd look into one of those and have a job to do while training.

The other types of roles exist in plentiful supply, but I think they are also less specialised, and the qualifications (NEBOSH, Prince2 etcetc) are cheaper and easier to obtain than a QS degree...

Oh, but how's your maths?

I work with QS's and PMs, they both have a building surveying background, QS is a solid job thats in high demand. Good luck!

I’m a QS, you want to do a degree apprenticeship really. I don’t think your maths needs to be that good in a mental arithmetic sense, but you need to be shit hot at excel, and “get” numbers.

Pay is good, better if you go contractor side but the work life balance there can be poor.

It’s VERY male and can be quite heated when you’re dealing with disagreements, which is maybe something to consider.

Being a QS involves a lot of handling money, which means lots of confrontation, money games, argey bargey. Hiding it, moving it, holding it back. It’s not for the faint hearted. The good ones are very good at playing those games. So, if you’re into that, where you can leave the emotion at the door, it would suit you. If not, H&S maybe?

Quantity surveyor it is. Thankyou!

I would not want someone in their 20s as a project manager or health and safety officer, that's for people with experience.

I've worked with plenty of 20 year old PMs - they're fine when supported by an effective sponsor...

I can tell you there's huge demand for people who can deal with fire safety of buildings at the moment due to new legislation, Building Safety Act. Not sure how you get into that but just huge huge demand.

I'm a surveyor but not a quantity surveyor. I'd recommend surveying general as a career, loads you can do with it. I'm 18yrs in and earned £190k this year (obviously varies massively with your actual job). Look at the RICS website but you may need an accredited degree in something relevant. Or there may be other ways in.

My advice is, whatever you do, to get really good technical experience early on.

And this is why I went self employed. I’m not waiting until I’m 40/50 to earn big money. Nobody wants to hire a 20 something year old but then those same people will turn around say we’re lazy or underemployed. My current area of work I’m known all over the country within the community & I’m bloody good. Even the most obnoxious & difficult to please accounts are shocked that I’m who I am when they finally meet me. Experience is to do with how much you’ve done something, studied & practiced it till your perfect not how old you are. Give people a chance for Gods sake.

Ooh I’ll look into that. Thank you very much.

I got a C in maths. My maths is okay to good in real life, I’m good at handling money, I’ve got a pretty good understanding of excel. Idk will that do lol

I’m a health & safety officer so feel free to ask any questions ☺️

Can I through in planning officer? Massive shortage of those and you can come up through the apprentice route.

They're all jobs where numeracy, excel, finance and am understanding of probability matter. You mentioned leaving school at 16, if you done that with an E in maths, I'd be a tad concerned that the technical and mathematical skills required during training may eventually prove to much.

(Work with a lot of apprentices who are okay for HNC, struggle with HND and then opt not to do a degree, whereas others sail through.)

That said, my experience in both safety and project management is in exceedingly niche, hazardous and research focussed sectors. And I think you're looking more at conventional construction? I don't have direct experience with QS.

Incidentally, when I was trying to get to the bottom of fire requirements for a building on a recent project, I ended up digging out the regulations and reading them myself. I'm by no means suitably qualified or experienced in this field, but I found the information needed. :D

There's always exceptions of course but in my experience its quite hard to get people to listen to health and safety officers, quite likely to be much harder when they're much younger than the workers. Even when health and safety officers are selected by the workers (which is how it works where I am - we elect people to serve as health and safety officers for a few years) too many people still don't listen to them - that would be a very unpleasant working experience for a young person and I wouldn't want that for them.

Project manager potentially alright but depends what field and just how much experience in that field, so they know the realities of working in that field and don't have unfeasible expectations.

Aye fair enough.

I got a C in maths. Not an E.
I’ll have to see, my uncle said that a C would be fine & he’d help me get into project management if I chose that. I was not interested in maths at 16 & wasn’t ready to understand the test questions but I was good at the actual maths that’s the only reason I got a C. I sat in the exam hall daydreaming about future business adventures lmao.

What do you do currently then?

You can’t do the job you fell in love with until you’re old, yet at 23 you’re known up and down the country for it? Hmm. What is it you do now then?

A few of my friends have chosen to do it, heard the pay was good & I liked the fact that you’re on the road visiting sites.
What’s the work life balance though? I’m done working 7 days a week missing every event & family member. I don’t mind a 6 day week but would love 5 days.
I don’t know if it’d be realistic I come from a family of tradies but I have no work experience in trades & I guess that would help if you’re on sites as a H&S officer.
Or is that not important & I’d just be reading the safety booklet & checking that they’re actually following it?
Thankyou

Depends if you are prepared/qualified to go to university or not. Or take a long time to get equivalent qualifications. I would say you won't progress far as a quantity surveyor or project manager without a degree.

Whereas you can become a H&S officer by doing an IOSH course.

I assume HGV driver just needs specialised training too.