Chartered Surveyor Degree Apprenticeships in Building Surveying

Chartered surveyor degree apprenticeships in building surveying

England guide · last reviewed September 2026

A degree apprenticeship lets you become a chartered building surveyor without paying tuition fees: you work for a surveying firm, study part-time for an accredited degree, and finish with the degree and chartered status. This guide is for school leavers, their parents and career changers. The rules here are for England; Scotland and Wales run their own schemes.

How it works

The Chartered Surveyor (degree) apprenticeship is a Level 6 apprenticeship with a building surveying pathway, alongside property and quantity surveying pathways. It typically takes about five years.
You're employed and paid from day one, and study for an RICS-accredited BSc, usually one day a week or through blocks and online learning. If you already have a degree, some providers offer an accredited postgraduate diploma or master's instead, which is shorter.
It ends in the APC. The apprenticeship's final assessment is the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence, so passing it makes you a chartered surveyor (MRICS). You'll need the degree, 24 months of structured training recorded in a diary, and 96 hours of CPD before you can take it. See the APC guide.
The employer's apprenticeship funding pays the tuition, up to £27,000. You don't take out a student loan.

Training time is part of your paid hours. The old rule that 20% of your time must be off-the-job training has been replaced by a set minimum number of hours for each apprenticeship: 1,044 hours for this one, for people starting from August 2025. Many course pages still mention the 20% rule.

Other apprenticeships

Surveying technician (Level 3). About two years, typically needing five GCSEs at grade 4 or above. It leads to AssocRICS and can be a step towards the degree apprenticeship.
Building control surveyor (Level 6). A four-year degree apprenticeship for people employed in building control. See the building control guide.

Who can apply

Most employers ask for A levels or equivalent (UBE, for example, asks for 96 UCAS points) and GCSE English and maths at grade 4 or above. There's no upper age limit, so career changers can apply. Since August 2026, employers pay part of the training cost for apprentices aged 25 or over (25% for large employers that have used their levy funds, 5% for smaller employers), while training for under-25s is fully funded.

Where to study

You don't apply to the university: the employer recruits you and chooses the provider. Universities offering the building surveying pathway include:

University of the Built Environment (UBE, formerly UCEM), online
Anglia Ruskin University
London South Bank University
Nottingham Trent University
University of Portsmouth
University of Salford
University of the West of England
University of West London

Check the course is RICS-accredited and offers the building surveying pathway. Some universities offer only quantity surveying or property.

When and where to apply

Large consultancies and councils mostly recruit between November and March for a September start. In 2026, Savills' applications ran from late January to mid-February, and Portsmouth City Council closed in January. Smaller firms advertise all year. Look on:

GOV.UK's Find an apprenticeship service
UCAS's apprenticeship search
the careers pages of large consultancies and your local council
local surveying practices, by contacting them directly, as many take on one apprentice at a time

Places are competitive. Work experience, even a week shadowing a surveyor, helps, as does showing you understand what building surveyors do. See what a building surveyor does.

Pay

The apprentice minimum wage is £8.00 an hour from April 2026, about £15,600 a year full time. It only applies to apprentices under 19, or in their first year. After that, the normal minimum wage for your age applies: £10.85 an hour for 18 to 20-year-olds and £12.71 for those 21 and over. Many surveying firms pay more than the minimum, especially in London, but advertised pay at smaller firms is often at or near it. For example, one Essex firm advertised £15,600 to £24,785 in September 2026, depending on age.

Pay usually rises each year and again when you qualify. Once chartered, you're paid as a building surveyor: see the salary guide.

Apprenticeship or a full-time degree?

Cost. A full-time degree means around £29,000 to £30,000 of tuition fee loans, plus maintenance loans. An apprenticeship has no tuition debt, and you're earning.
Time to chartership. Similar: about five years either way, as graduates need at least two years of structured training after their degree.
Experience. An apprentice qualifies with five years of work behind them, a graduate with two. Some surveyors who took a conversion master's say on r/buildingsurveying that they'd choose an apprenticeship if they did it again. It's also a good place to ask current apprentices what it's like.
The trade-offs. Balancing work and study is hard work, first-year pay is low, and you miss the full-time student experience. You're also tied to one employer for much of the course.

If you change employer, the apprenticeship can continue if you start the new job within four weeks, and you have up to 12 weeks in total to find one. There's extra protection if you're made redundant near the end.

For the other ways in, including conversion master's degrees, see how to become a building surveyor.

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