From the Trades to Chartered Building Surveyor with Lewis Denbow

Summary

Lewis Denbow, chartered building surveyor at Harris Associates, joins me to share his journey from an electrical apprenticeship into building surveying. We talk about apprenticeships, the APC, communication skills, and why the trades could play a huge role in solving the surveying skills shortage.

What we cover

• An unorthodox route into building surveying
• Degree apprenticeships and accessibility
• Lessons from the trades
• Communication and client relationships
• Project management and stakeholder management
• Advice for those starting out in surveying

Guest links

• Lewis Denbow on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewisdenbow/
• Harris Associates – https://www.harrisassociatesuk.com/

Useful links

• Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) – https://www.rics.org/

Guest Bio

Lewis Denbow is a chartered building surveyor at Harris Associates, a national award-winning built environment consultancy. He entered the profession through an unconventional route, starting in the electrical trade before completing a degree apprenticeship and achieving chartership. Lewis now works across building surveying and project management, with a strong focus on communication, stakeholder management, and practical problem-solving.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Hello and welcome. You're listening to This Is Surveying, the podcast shining a light on the people, ideas, and stories shaping this incredible profession. I'm Nina Young, founder of Surveyors UK and the Surveying Room, the community bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and making surveying visible. So for now, let's dive into our latest episode. Hello everybody and welcome to This Is Surveying. Today's guest is Lewis Dembo. Welcome, Lewis.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Good morning, Nina. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Welcome, and I'm pleased to have you on here today. Lewis is a chartered building surveyor for Harris Associates, who are a national award-winning built environment consultants. Have I got that right, Lewis?

SPEAKER_02 0:59

You have indeed, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Excellent, excellent. So obviously we've been uh we had a quick catch-up before before this call, and there's a few things that I think are going to be really good for listeners across the board. The first thing, as always, is I'm interested to know, as with many surveyors, how you got into surveying, how you became a chartered building surveyor. Um, so what was your journey?

SPEAKER_02 1:25

So I took quite an unorthodox route, I suppose, into the profession. Because I left school with three D's at A level, which um my thought there is dismay, I was it wasn't the result we were hoping for. So I went into um an electrical apprenticeship after that, which I enjoyed very much, but I didn't feel like I was best used. So I applied to university to do a high national certificate, which I which I got into. So I started university for a year and then converted that into a degree apprenticeship after approaching a company that was offering the time. So from there did my degree apprenticeship, got my degree, and then was charged.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

I just uh to interject, what what made the what made you do the switch?

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, so as I it was it I just felt like I wasn't being best used where I was. I was working mainly with my hands, a little bit with my mind, of course, but I felt like I could provide more value to the construction industry on the more professional side of things. I felt like I wanted to go to university as well. And I got both of those things through doing my apprenticeship, and and that was the main reason for the switch.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

And how did you what how did you find that experience being an apprentice?

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Being an apprentice.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Being an electrician apprentice or being oh, I suppose how how do the two compare would be an interesting Yeah, that that would be interesting, yes. Yeah, so in many ways, there's a lot of similarities because you're a junior and you're taking instructions and you're learning on the job. So in that it the two are very similar in that regard. Obviously, being a surveyor, you work more of an more in an office, so you're not cold in China to stay in the office. Um, and I'll be honest, the workload with the apprenticeship, obviously, degree apprenticeship was much more than the um the electrical apprenticeship. But the transition from being an electrician through to actually doing my apprenticeship in surveying, that was, I suppose, quite stressful at the time because you're taking a leap of faith. My family didn't really understand what I was doing. Obviously, an electrician's a great job, it's a very secure job as well. Yes, and is it is a very sort of certain route to being qualified and and and sort of being able to go on to have your own business and all the good things that come with that. So it was a it was a bit of a leap of faith, I suppose. I had to go and work in a bar for a few months, which is very different from working on site. Obviously, I wasn't gonna pay very much either, then I had to apply to university getting that sort of my funding. So it was a quite a long time before I started really gaining direction. I knew where I wanted to get to, but actually when I went to uni, I didn't even know that I wanted to do an apprenticeship. So it was merely just getting to uni and getting my degree. It wasn't until I was at uni that I discovered the degree apprenticeship because one of my course mates just mentioned it.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Okay, so you just found out by accident?

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Pretty much, actually. So I would say it was a bit of an accident, and and I'm very lucky to have had that conversation. And it didn't take me long to decide that actually weighing up the debt and the quality of the tuition as well at the time. I decided that it was a I like the phrase, but a no-brainer for me to go into to it to to to the apprenticeship route and set about trying to find an employer that provided that.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Did you during all of this, did you get enough support? I'm not necessarily talking about the employer, but as in, did you have a network of other apprentice buildings? Because I what I hear a lot of is that there are never many in one time, sort of when you're going through the process. Did you know other apprentice building surveyors?

SPEAKER_02 5:01

So I did mine through the U University College of Estate Management, they were called it. And by virtue of that, I was on the course with quite a few other apprentice building surveyors. So it was all of an online network, as it were. When I was actually at university though, none of us n none of us were apprentices. Because I didn't really have anybody to talk to about the apprenticeship scheme, and it wasn't as sort of prominent as it is now. So I didn't discuss with any other apprentices before I got onto the apprenticeship pathway with my employer. I had to find the course myself, did a little bit of research on that, was comparing two providers, and then just applied to the one that I thought was the best, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Um Is it is it something, Lewis, that you would recommend? Because obviously we we do have a shortage of building surveyors in the UK.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

It depends because I think it's you have to question what it is that you want.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Moving away to university and having those three or four years for some people is incredibly exciting. And it gives them everything that they want in life, of course. Freedom, they're away from their parents, away from the home, um, relatively limited responsibility in comparison to the world of work. Obviously, there's responsibilities that come in being at university, I'm not saying that, but it's a very different way of life. I've experienced both. For me personally, I would absolutely and for people like me, I would completely recommend it because it gives you structure and it gives you an income and means you're not incurring a large amount of debt. So I think the benefits are are relatively obvious. It's just it's just whether you're someone that wants to, I suppose, sacrifice the freedom that comes in the university for the benefits that come with an apprenticeship. It really is a personal preference.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it it does depend on the person. And like you say, being that there's three, four years at uni gives can give something else. That freedom, that experience in itself is it is valuable. But no, it's always interesting to get perspectives because I think more and more I hear of apprenticeships across different types of surveying. It's now been talked about and supported by the likes of the RSES. And I think because we need more more people coming in, especially uh across surveying to be honest, but especially around building surveying, it does give that accessibility. And I'd like to go on to what we mentioned earlier, which is around the trades and the trades potentially seeing this as an opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Yeah, so we were talking, weren't we, about you know there being a skill shortage or a lack of building, as it were. So I apprenticeships mainly are focused around younger people, school leaders. But I think that in terms of bringing more people into the profession, yes, we need we do need to raise awareness at the early stages, and particularly in universities as well for any sort of conversion courses, but there's a large untapped potential, I believe, in the trades. So from as I've said, I've come from an electrical background. Um, I know other people that are qualified plumbers that we've got here in the office that are now on a surveying degree apprenticeship, and it's tapping into those individuals who want to be in the office, you know, or and want to be on the professional side of construction of maybe up to 10 years or more, maybe even less experience in the trades, and providing a way for them to convert to a pro a prof to the profession.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

I think it's an excellent point. And I think it is a huge opportunity, and to me it's a no-brainer because there's that skill, like and this is what we'll come on to talk about. The that the skills, one of the best skills for surveyors is communication. And somebody that's worked in the trade for 10 years, they will have honed their communication skills well. And I think that's something that should be really valued, and that's what a big part of what I think trades can bring, as well as obviously their understanding of the built environment.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

Yeah, absolutely. Because obviously you've got the technical knowledge related to their trade, but as you say, all the also the communication skills that come with dealing with clients and other colleagues as well, because office politics is obviously a massive thing in professions, but side politics is big in the trades and have an experience both, that they're not too dissimilar. Okay. There's differences, but you have to be professional in both canally in both realms. So I think I think there's there's an enormous amount that we could do to take people to bring people into building surveillance specifically. I think a lot of trades will go into sort of estimating when they start pricing jobs up there, so they become an estimator and then a QS, maybe off the back of that, or they become a contracts manager in the firm that they work for. Surveying obviously comes with other requirements. You have to go to write reports, diagnose defects. But take the take the electrical profession, for example. You've got the test circuits, they will they'll fault find, they will diagnose problems. It's a very similar process as to uh you know what a surveyor would would find. They diagnose, they and they and they rectify.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

So problem solvers. Literally finding the root of a problem, you have to diagnose the situation and work out how to solve it. Okay, so one of the things that I like to ask people is what is it that you enjoy about being a surveyor? What is it?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

I enjoy meeting people, several different types of people on a daily basis and communicating with people in in very different ways, be it on the on Teams, be it on a phone, be it meeting them in person, on site, in meeting rooms, and just doing and just being being around colleagues is just for me, that's what really I really love about it, alongside the obvious I I like the technical side of construction, always have done. But for me personally, it's the sort of interpersonal stuff, that's what I really enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

I think it's a big part of surveying that's not you don't really hear much about. It's a huge part of it, the ability to communicate with with clients and people involved in your day-to-day work and people, whether it be on-site, off-site, that kind of thing. And I think uh what we touched upon was maybe delivering difficult messages.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Yeah, so I'd say as a surveyor, you have to be an expert in delivering bad news.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

You're often solving problems that clients didn't know that they had in ways that they don't understand, and you have to explain that in a way that they do understand, and it's often can be you you're delivering the news that may cost them money, or maybe a different solution to what they were hoping, or may th things may take longer. And being able to manage the various stakeholders when you're delivering that solution is a is a skill, and it's something that comes. I'm still working on it now.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

So it's something that you constantly build on. Absolutely. How do you tend to deal with that, like a difficult a difficult situation or a sort of a difficult message? Is there any sort of particular approach that you have or any tips for anybody?

SPEAKER_02 12:13

I think you have to first understand the issue inside out, to understand who it's going to impact and how it's going to impact them. And then you need to come up with some options. So ideally three options, two or three options to deal with the issue. And they need to have different impacts. So one might cost more, but it'll be quicker. One might be quicker, but it might cost more. And one might be more disruptive, but it might cost less. You have to think about it from end to end, and it all comes down to your understanding of it, of the issue and what you're going to do about it. So if you can if you can get that down before you deliver the the issue, the the news to the to the client or whoever it's going to affect, it means that you can deal with objections, but you can also deliver it in a way that doesn't cause panic. You contain the issue. I think that's really important. Containment is such an important thing as an advice that you don't let your emotion get too involved. And this is again something that I'm will be working on for the rest of my career, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

I guess you're always going to be exposed to new things because I would imagine every day is different, is it?

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Do you spend a lot of time? So what's your balance between office and sort of on-site work?

SPEAKER_02 13:30

So in my role at the moment, I would say I was more of a more of a project manager and employer's agent. So I spend a lot of the time actually in the office. We've got a dedicated Clark of Works team that would do a lot of our on-site monitoring. But as a surveyor, when I'm because we do we do commercial work as well and surveying work, obviously I'll be need to be out of the office to do the inspection. But I'd say my actual split is probably about 80% office, 20% site. But that isn't necessarily reflective of life as a surveyor. Some people are out of the office far more and they prefer to be in the office less. But that's just a personal preference, really. And I try to keep in the office as much as I can, but that's again just a just a personal preference.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

So even within the the role of a child to building surveyor, there is still a wide variation of types of work, office-based, site-based, that kind of thing, depending on the sort of subspecialisms within being a child-to-building surveyor. Would that be correct?

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Yeah, that's absolutely correct. Yeah, and it depends, obviously, for the firm for which firm you work for. They might do the firm that you work for might do 80% professional work. And what I mean by that is surveys, and they might and might do sort of 20% project work. So by virtue of that, you might be out of the office a lot of the time doing inspections and then writing the report up either on site or back at the office. So you could have a 50-50 split. You work for other practices that do a lot of project work, so you may be able to stay in the office more. But again, you work it such that you're on a different site every day and you work from that site. It really is down to the preference of the surveyor, where your projects are and just how the company's set up. So I think there's a lot of flex. So is where what I'm really trying to say is there's a lot of flexibility, and you can make it work for you and your ways of working, because there may be several reasons why you prefer staying in the office or being out more. It's it's all you you can work.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

It's good in winter.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

And I'm a manager of mine, he's a fair weather surveyor. I thought that was quite funny.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Fair weather surveyor. Yeah, I like that. I like that. So with um just explore a little bit about project management because it's it's an area that I I I really don't have in-depth knowledge of. Going back to communication skills, I would imagine as a project manager, you have to manage a lot of stakeholders. Would that be fair to say?

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah, certainly. And that would change depending on the type of project and the building that you're working in. But yeah, stakeholder management is a is a key element of project management. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

And obviously, you that's one of the things that you enjoy about being surveyed. So it's kind of a good I can see why it's a good fit, why it's something that you're doing is that managing people a lot within project management rather than some surveying roles where you very much just go out on out on your own and you're reporting and that kind of thing. So it's quite different. You will have far more interaction with people, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Yes, it's as much relationship management as it is people management. I'd say more that, to be honest with you, because the big people management comes more from the contractor side, PM, who so the contractors deal with the more tactical side of things, and the professionals deal with the more strategic, higher level side of the project, and therefore they're managing the relationship with the client, the contractor, between those two people. And then maybe if you're working in a residential building or a leasehold building, you're dealing with leaseholders, residents, and then of course you've got the statutory bodies as well that you're dealing with. There's several different types of relationship you've got to manage, and some require a more hands-on personal approach, others you will have to do all in writing on email. You have to really tailor it depending on the unique characteristics of the project, the client, the individual you're speaking with. And I love that. I think that's it's it requires me as a person, not as a surveyor, as a person to develop and understand people.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

And juggling lots of things, which I think a lot of surveyors do.

unknown 17:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah, that's a big stress of the job, to be honest with you, particularly when you're dealing with project and professional work at the same time. When you're out on site doing a survey, you're not doing emails, but the project is happening when you're doing the survey elsewhere. So it's managing that is is a is a big challenge. I think I think every surveyor, certainly commercial surveyor that is a sort of a PM and contract administrator as well as a surveyor, managing those two elements of your work is is something I think we all sort of struggle with, but it's certainly something that we have to be mindful of.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah, I have it's something I have heard before actually. It's quite it it can be quite challenging and intensive, I'd say.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yes. Yeah, Dinah deadlines when you've also got live projects.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Yeah. I think um obviously you are a charter building surveyor, so I like to just understand and hear a little bit about your APC sort of journey and how you found that.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Yeah, yeah. So by virtue of the fact I was an apprentice, it meant that I did my degree and my APC, they overlapped by about 18 months. So it's quite an accelerated route and requires quite a lot of your time both inside and outside of your sort of working week. So my week was set up that I did I worked for my employer Monday to Thursday. I had my study day Friday, and then my weekends and evenings were spent doing my degree and then my APC. So typically the apprenticeship is five years. The latter two years of that, you're doing your APC, but the degree ends at year four and halfway through the fourth year. So it's about an 80 year way doing both. So it's it's quite an intense. You juggling three sort of different demands there, because obviously, as you get more experience your work life, the demands from your employer increase and naturally as they should. You've then got the degree, which doesn't get any easier as you progress to the latter years, and then the APC again, which doesn't quite endowment as you go further through it, that gets even more intense. So it's there comes a point where you're really under pressure, and you've got to be very selective on what it is you try to well, what is you working on that day, what goal are you towards? So, to answer your question, how was my APC journey? Again, pretty unorthodox, I suppose, in in that it wasn't just the APC that I was doing at the time, and you have to plan.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

I have to say, yeah. Time management, and I guess what that makes me think of is going through that a journey which would have been extremely challenging and difficult. It does prepare you though for especially the work that you do, because you literally are having to juggle things, manage your time and plan, which you you have to do in in the role you do now. Yes. It kind of sets you up, doesn't it? Even though it's it's obviously not easy. Is there any any advice you would give anyone on I mean, how did you deal with it? What would you any any kind of tips?

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Not perfectly. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna profess to say that it was I don't think anyone would be doing it and nobody would do it perfectly, I don't think. There's things that I would do differently. I would prioritize my degree less, to be honest with you, I'd put more time into the APC. I think that the APC is a brilliant structured program, and I wish I'd have dedicated more time to it to get the most out of it. It wasn't something that I saw it wasn't something just to pass, it was something to extract maximal value out of. So I think if if I was giving anybody advice, it would be do your degree to get the degree because you need it to do your APC, and it's the APC that will give you your solid grounding to move forward in your career.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

I see. Yeah, okay, no, that's good advice. What was the pathway you did with the APC?

SPEAKER_02 21:24

I did building survey.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

You did building survey, excuse me, because um some people listening to this might be like thinking, oh, what does that I need to do? And sometimes it's not always obvious the pathways, because there's there's quite a few different avenues to becoming charted. Share for anyone listening.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Anything else I'd like to share.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Hmm, anything.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Maybe just some tips and tricks for sort of young for getting into the world of work, not necessarily just surveying. I think just because I'm not, you know, too far away. It's not too far in the past.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Was it it four years? Five years ago. Seven years ago, I thought. Sorry, seven years, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Yeah. So just Some basic things about anybody you know at graduate level or school leavers looking to get into the world of work is that go and ask for a job, which is what which is what I did at Ridge when I when I went and joined Ridge and Partners. I didn't apply, I just asked them for a job. And that was that was Did you just turn up?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Did you just like no?

SPEAKER_02 22:18

I I need somebody that knew somebody and uh excellent in touch that way. So like build build a network, and it hasn't got to be an online community necessarily, it hasn't got to be a really big network. You can just be within your local town or your city, um, within the industry in the industry that you want to go into. And that can be done quite easily now through LinkedIn and other things. Go and meet them, pick up the phone, write an email. So you've already demonstrated in those three things that you can network write an email and you can speak on the phone. And that is sets you apart from quite a lot of people. So just by making sure that you you can demonstrate that you can write, speak, and I suppose think at the same time. It might not be what you want, but you might think that you want it. So go and go and get the job, and then once you're in the job, know that it's going to be very difficult and that it not necessarily forever. So there will come a point in the apprenticeship, and maybe your APC, where things get very, very difficult and you think, is this really what I want? But I always told myself being 25 or 24, I think it was 24 and chartered was better than being 24 and not chartered. So if I at least get to that point, I can then decide whether this is what I want to do, and and and it it's worked out, but just keep going. I don't know that would be my advice when it gets hard, just keep going. I know it sounds very simple.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

No, I think it's great advice. I think it's so true PC. You get over that hurdle, I would imagine. And just to keep going, like you say, and not and not give up. There are different routes, so if there's one particular route you're on, you can you you know you're not stuck there. I think like we've been talking about, like being doing the professional sort of side of it or doing the PM project management side of it, for example.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Yeah, certainly. It gets it's a springboard onto sort of many different platforms, and you can you can spin it in whatever way that you really want to within the within the construction industry.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Um Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think I think your tips are great, and I'm I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of people listening thinking about this route. I know we we need more building surveyors, so I hope uh we'll spread this uh loud and wide to get these messages across. But thank you very much for your time today, Lewis. Thank you very much for having me now. It's been great, and I I I think you've I think you've touched some really important points, especially around things such as communication and what a big part of the role that is. I think that's dealing with people, delivering difficult messages, and also which I think is something that I hope a lot of people will take note of, is the opportunity to do apprenticeships not just from young sort of school level, but also for trades. I think that when we're in a situation where we have such a shortage and there are lots of people that have amazing, incredible experience in different trades, and that, like you say, they want to move across to something else, it's such a huge opportunity. And there's so many skilled people, like you said, you've got was it a plumber you said you've got Harris, is it? Yeah. But yes, so thank you. Thank you very much. I've really enjoyed it. Thanks for your time, Lewis. Thank you for listening to This Is Surveying. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and supports the work we're doing to raise awareness of the profession. You can also join the Surveying Room, the free and independent community from Surveyors UK, bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and of course making surveying visible. Just head over to surveyors UK.com to learn more and join today. All the links discussed in today's episode are included in the show notes.