Building Surveyor Recruitment for Consultancies: What SME Practices Need to Know

If you run a small or mid-sized building surveying practice, you’ll probably recognise this. Your advert has been up for weeks. The applications coming in aren’t chartered, or they don’t do the work you need, and the one good candidate you spoke to has gone quiet.

You’re not doing anything wrong. Hiring a chartered building surveyor into private practice is a different job from filling most roles, and it rewards a different approach.

At Marks Consulting Partners, we recruit into property and building surveying consultancies as well as housing associations and local authorities, so we see the market from both sides. This guide sets out what we’ve learned about hiring well as an SME.

Chartered building surveyors in private practice are a small, well-networked group. Most MRICS or CIOB surveyors worth hiring are already employed, busy with fee-earning work and not browsing job boards in the evening.

When they do think about a move, they usually hear about it through people they trust: former colleagues, their own network, or a recruiter they already know. A job board advert reaches the people who are actively looking, which in this market is only a small slice of the people you’d want to talk to.

There’s a matching problem too. “Building surveyor” covers a lot of ground, and an advert can’t tell the difference between someone who has run dilapidations claims for commercial landlords and someone whose experience is responsive repairs in social housing. Both might apply, but only one fits your practice.

A good brief saves you weeks, whoever you’re working with. These are the points to cover clearly.

Disciplines. Be specific about the work. Is it dilapidations, party wall, landlord and tenant, defects diagnosis and pre-acquisition surveys, contract administration, or a mix? Tell the recruiter roughly how the role splits between them, because a surveyor who is strong on contract administration isn’t automatically strong on party wall matters.

Seniority. Say whether you need someone to run their own caseload, someone to lead a team, or someone to support a partner. Titles vary from one practice to the next, so describe the responsibility rather than relying on words like “senior” or “associate”.

Route to chartership. Decide whether you need MRICS or CIOB membership now, or whether you’d consider someone working towards it. If you can support an APC candidate, say so, because it widens the pool without lowering your standards.

Office and travel pattern. Where is the base, how many days a week are expected in the office, and how much travel does the role involve? If you work nationally, be honest about how far someone will be expected to go and how often.

Your process. Who interviews, how many stages there are, and how quickly you can make a decision.

Larger firms have HR teams, spare capacity and enough surveyors to absorb a gap. Most SME practices don’t. When a surveyor leaves or a hire goes wrong, the work lands on partners and directors who are already stretched.

Client relationships are exposed as well. In a small practice, your surveyors are often the day-to-day contact for important clients. A slow hire means deadlines slip or work gets turned away, and a wrong hire can be worse, because the reports and advice going out carry your name.

Time works against you in another way. Good chartered surveyors rarely stay on the market for long. If your process involves several rounds, long gaps between stages or a slow sign-off, the candidate you liked may accept somewhere else before you’ve made an offer.

A recruiter who regularly places into consultancies should do three things a generalist agency usually can’t.

First, they know who is open to a move before that person applies anywhere. That knowledge comes from ongoing conversations with surveyors across the market, not from a database search on the day your role comes in.

Second, they screen for discipline fit. They’ll ask whether a candidate has actually prepared and negotiated schedules of dilapidations, acted as a party wall surveyor, or administered building contracts, rather than accepting “building surveyor” as enough.

Third, they send fewer CVs, and better ones. You should be reading a shortlist of people who could genuinely do the job, not sifting a pile of loosely matched profiles.

That’s how we work at Marks Consulting Partners. Clients tell us we listen properly to the brief and put forward a smaller number of genuinely relevant candidates. We’d rather send you two strong CVs than ten maybes.

One of our clients is an SME building surveying consultancy with offices in Newcastle and London that hires chartered surveyors nationally. Because of their size, working with them is refreshingly straightforward.

We send CVs, interviews get booked in straight away, and offers and onboarding happen quickly. There’s no bureaucracy standing between a good candidate and a decision.

That’s a real advantage for an SME. You may not be able to compete with a large firm on brand, but you can compete on pace, clarity and a personal process. Candidates notice when a partner picks up the phone, gives straight feedback and makes a decision without weeks of delay.

• The disciplines the role covers, and roughly how the work splits between them
• The level of seniority and responsibility, described in plain terms
• Whether MRICS or CIOB membership is essential now, or whether you’d support someone through chartership
• The office base, days in the office and the realistic travel pattern
• The salary and package, agreed internally before you start
• Who interviews, how many stages there are, and who signs off the offer
• Interview dates held in the diary, so a good candidate isn’t kept waiting
• Anything that would rule a candidate out, so the recruiter can screen for it early

How do I hire a chartered building surveyor for a small consultancy?

Start with a specific brief covering disciplines, seniority, chartership and office pattern. Most chartered building surveyors in private practice aren’t actively job hunting, so a recruiter with an established network in consultancies will usually reach more of the right people than an advert alone. Keep your interview process short so good candidates don’t go elsewhere.

Why can’t I find MRICS building surveyors on job boards?

Most chartered building surveyors are already employed and busy, and they tend to move through personal networks and trusted recruiters rather than adverts. Job boards also can’t easily tell apart very different kinds of building surveying experience. That’s why many SME practices get plenty of applications but few that fit.

Should I consider building surveyors who are working towards chartership?

Often, yes. If you can offer APC support and supervision, candidates working towards MRICS or CIOB membership widen your pool and can grow with your practice. Just be clear in your brief whether chartership is essential now or a target.

What’s the difference between a specialist and a generalist recruiter for surveying roles?

A specialist property recruiter knows the disciplines within building surveying, knows which surveyors are open to a move, and screens candidates against the actual work. A generalist agency is more likely to match on job title alone. For an SME consultancy, where every hire matters, that difference shows up in the quality of the shortlist.

What should I tell a recruiter about a building surveyor role?

Cover the disciplines (for example dilapidations, party wall, landlord and tenant, defects and pre-acquisition surveys, contract administration), the level of responsibility, chartership requirements, office and travel pattern, package and interview process. The more specific you are, the fewer unsuitable CVs you’ll see.

We’re a property recruitment consultancy based in Bushey, Hertfordshire, working with consultancies, housing associations and local authorities across the UK. If you’re planning a hire, you can read more about [how we work with clients](https://markscp.co.uk/clients/), or just give the team a call for a straightforward chat.