How much do building surveyors earn?
Building surveyors in the UK typically earn £42,500 a year in base salary. That's the median of 17 salaries in the index; the middle half earn between £32,500 and £57,500.
This guide explains how pay changes through a building surveying career and what makes the biggest difference. The figures come from real, anonymous salaries shared by building surveyors and update as new ones are added.
Salary by career stage
Most building surveyors follow a similar path, although job titles vary between firms.
- Graduate and Assistant Surveyor
- The first years after a degree or apprenticeship, carrying out surveys under supervision while working towards chartership.
- A typical day: Mornings are often on site with a senior surveyor, or alone on smaller inspections such as schedules of condition, dilapidations and measured surveys. Back at the desk, you write up report sections, draw plans and prepare specifications for a senior to check, and keep your APC diary up to date. Many graduates are running small projects of their own within months, and the APC diary is often what gets squeezed when it’s busy.
- Surveyor
- Running your own jobs day to day. Many people reach this stage around the time they become chartered.
- A typical day: You manage your own caseload, usually several projects at once alongside surveys, dilapidations and schedules of condition. In commercial practice, contract administration and project management is often most of the job: preparing tender packs, visiting site to monitor works and value progress, and keeping client and contractor moving. Time is usually recorded on timesheets against fee targets.
- Senior and Principal Surveyor
- Usually chartered with several years of experience, leading larger or more complex jobs and supporting or managing others.
- A typical day: Less time producing reports, more time checking and signing off other people’s. You lead bigger or trickier projects and portfolios, help win work, and often act as an APC supervisor or counsellor. Some move into specialist work such as acting as an expert witness in disputes.
- Associate, Director and Partner
- Senior roles that add business development, client and team responsibility. Bonus and car allowance often become a bigger part of the package.
- A typical day: Much of the week goes on clients, winning work, running the team and hitting fee targets, as well as quality and risk. You still lead key instructions, but spend less time on site.
Site, office and hours. Time on site varies a lot. Commercial surveyors running projects are often on site a day or two a week, while residential and building control surveyors are out most days, and a day of inspections can mean a day or more of writing up. Hybrid working is common and many roles involve a lot of driving. Project work comes in busy spells with longer hours around deadlines, and much of the pressure comes from sitting between the client and the contractor.
UK salaries by seniority
| Group | Salaries | Median | Typical range | Relative level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Graduate Surveyor | 2 | Not enough data yet | ||
| Assistant / Junior Surveyor | 4 | Not enough data yet | ||
| Surveyor | 7 | £47,500 | £42,500 - £57,500 | |
| Senior Surveyor | 3 | Not enough data yet | ||
| Associate | 1 | Not enough data yet | ||
How long the APC takes
Most building surveyors become chartered (MRICS) through the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence (APC). With an RICS-accredited degree and less than five years' experience, you complete 24 months of structured training, recording your experience against the building surveying competencies. With five to ten years' experience, it's 12 months.
You then submit a written summary of your experience, a 3,000-word case study on a recent project and a record of your CPD. The final assessment is a 60-minute online interview with two assessors, starting with a 10-minute presentation of your case study. Results come back within about a week.
Two to three years from starting work is typical at best, and many take longer. Building surveying covers a wide range of competencies and many candidates don't pass at their first attempt. The usual causes of delay are too narrow a range of work to cover the competencies, heavy workloads and limited support from the employer.
People with five or more years of relevant experience can apply through the preliminary review route instead, and those whose degree isn't RICS-accredited usually take an accredited master's first.
Becoming chartered usually brings a noticeable pay rise. Surveyors commonly report around £10,000 to £15,000, but it isn't automatic, and the rise often comes from moving to a new employer.
Graduate schemes and apprenticeships
Larger consultancies run graduate schemes, usually recruiting from around September to January for the following year and often filling places from their summer placement schemes. A scheme is built around the APC: you get a supervisor and a counsellor, regular progress reviews and internal training, and you work across different teams and types of property to cover the competencies you need. Smaller firms offer the same route to chartership with less formal structure, and often a broader mix of work, which helps with the APC; at a large firm it's possible to end up doing only one type of work.
It's worth checking whether an employer pays your RICS and APC fees, gives you study time and runs mock interviews before your final assessment, as this varies a lot. Some large firms also sponsor an accredited master's for graduates whose degree isn't accredited.
The other main route is a Level 6 Chartered Surveyor degree apprenticeship on the building surveying pathway. You work and study part-time for your degree, usually over about five years, with no tuition fees to pay, and the APC is the apprenticeship's final assessment. Apprentice pay starts below graduate pay.
Commercial and residential surveying: how pay differs
Commercial building surveyors, mostly in consultancies, carry out pre-acquisition surveys, schedules of condition and dilapidations, diagnose defects, and design and run refurbishment projects from specification through tender to contract administration. Pay is a salary set by the firm, often with a fee target: bonuses are commonly linked to billing well above your salary, sometimes around three times it. Car allowances often start a couple of years after qualifying.
Residential surveyors carry out RICS Home Surveys (Levels 1 to 3) and mortgage valuations. The large firms that value homes for mortgage lenders mostly employ home-based surveyors covering a geographic patch, with daily targets measured in points (a valuation counts for less than a full survey) and commission on work above target, on top of a base salary and car allowance. Early in a career, total pay there can match or beat commercial surveying, but it depends on the patch and the housing market, and many describe the pace as relentless. Smaller local practices usually do one or two surveys a day, with a higher base salary and less commission.
Valuations for lenders require registration under RICS's Valuer Registration Scheme. Many residential surveyors train through a residential surveying diploma, often through a large firm's training academy, which leads to AssocRICS; becoming chartered (MRICS) is a further step. In some firms, "residential" instead means social housing work for councils and housing associations, such as stock condition surveys.
Building control surveyors check plans and inspect work on site against the Building Regulations, for councils or private building control firms. Pay rises with registration class, and private firms generally pay more than councils.
The index records base salary, with bonus and car allowance as extras, so it understates total pay where commission is a large part of the package. There aren't enough residential salaries in the index yet to compare base pay directly.
What affects a building surveyor's salary
- Chartership. Passing the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) to become a chartered surveyor (MRICS) is usually the point where pay and job title step up.
- Location. As in most professions, London and the South East tend to pay more than other regions, although large firms and areas short of surveyors can match London pay.
- Employer. Local authority and other public sector roles are usually paid on published pay scales, so pay rises in steps, and usually come with a more generous pension. Private consultancies vary more, and are more likely to add bonuses and car allowances.
- Changing employer. Surveyors consistently say the biggest rises come from moving firm, often every two to four years, rather than from annual pay reviews.
- Specialism. Building control, residential surveying, insurance and reinstatement, heritage and retrofit work each have their own pay patterns. Residential surveyors doing home surveys and valuations are often paid a base salary plus a car allowance, and sometimes commission.
- Registration. Since April 2024, building inspectors in England and Wales must be registered as Registered Building Inspectors, in classes from 1 (trainee) to 4 (technical manager). The class sets the work they can take on.
Pay across UK regions
Regions need at least 5 salaries before we show figures, so some regions will say "Not enough data yet" until more people take part.
UK salaries by region
| Group | Salaries | Median | Typical range | Relative level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East of England | 1 | Not enough data yet | ||
| London | 4 | Not enough data yet | ||
| North West | 2 | Not enough data yet | ||
| Scotland | 2 | Not enough data yet | ||
| Yorkshire and the Humber | 1 | Not enough data yet | ||
Building surveyor salaries in Australia
Building surveyors in Australia typically earn A$125,000 a year in base salary. That's the median of 7 salaries in the index; the middle half earn between A$95,000 and A$135,000.
In New South Wales and Queensland they're usually called building certifiers, and in Victoria registered building surveyors. Each state registers or licenses them, and the level of registration sets which buildings they can sign off: restricted or limited registration covers houses and smaller buildings, while unrestricted covers any building. Most start as a cadet or assistant and need around two years of supervised experience before their first registration, and reaching unrestricted takes several years more, including experience of larger buildings.
Surveyors describe a shortage of registered practitioners, yet cadetships are hard to get. Councils and private certification firms both employ them, with the balance varying by state. Because pay rises steeply with registration level, one typical figure covers a wide range, from cadets to unrestricted surveyors.
How these figures work
- Figures are annual base salary, before bonus, car allowance and other benefits.
- Salaries are shared as ranges, such as £45,000 to £49,999, and each counts at the middle of its range.
- The typical salary is the median: half earn more and half earn less. The range shown is the middle half of salaries (the 25th to 75th percentile).
- Groups with fewer than 5 salaries show no figures, because a group that small isn't a reliable guide and could identify someone.