In this first of a series of blog posts, James Laughlin, Trainee Chartered Surveyor at Watsons describes how he started this career path and what steps he’s taken so far to get to where he is today…
As I was growing up, I wanted to be a fair few things; an accountant, a barrister, a journalist, even the Prime Minister, but becoming a Chartered Surveyor never even crossed my mind.
I graduated from the University of East Anglia back in 2012 with a Bachelor of Laws degree, and promptly decided I didn’t want to be a barrister anymore – too morally grey for my liking. I found myself working for the NHS instead; first as a dispatcher for the Ambulance Service, and then taking calls for the 111 Service. It was rewarding work, but the shift work involved eventually lost its lustre. I mean, where’s the fun in having one weekend off every six weeks?
That’s when I joined Watsons, back in 2017.
In all honesty, even then I hadn’t even given any thought to becoming a Chartered Surveyor. All I’d been looking for was something in an office hours sort of vein, so I could get my weekends back and start looking at some sort of career.
I started off working as part of the Surveyor Support Team, helping to look after what was then a fairly small team of five surveyors; doing background research on the properties they were inspecting, and then putting their reports together afterwards and sending them out.
As a child I’d always been fascinated by how things worked and how they were put together, and reading the various reports that would come across my desk re-sparked this old interest. I went out on a couple of ‘ride-alongs’ with a couple of the surveyors and my mind was made up – I’d finally found something I felt truly drawn to and wanted to make a career out of.
So here I am now, just over a year into a four year process, as I embark on my second and final year of my MSc in Real Estate. Back when I started the course in September 2018, the two years of study seemed like an eternity, let alone the additional two years of RICS-mandated training, but the first year has flown by. I dare say the second year will as well, even if the 12,500-word dissertation does its best to change that!
Even though the main focus of the first two years is on attaining my Master’s degree, that doesn’t mean that training has taken a back seat. I’ve moved away from the Support Team and now work closely with Ray Smith, Senior Partner of the firm. We spend the bulk of our days out on surveys, carrying out inspections, and then back in the office we’ll work together to finalise the reports and work out valuations etc.,
The training has been enthralling, and one of the joys of the job is that no two inspections are the same. I’ve been out to see £1.5m Elizabethan country houses and £50k 1950s seaside chalets, and everything in between. I know it sounds cliché but there’s quite honestly something new to learn and absorb with every different property we look at.
Keep your eyes peeled for Part 2 in 2020…
If you need a home survey, please contact our Surveys Team on 01603 751577 or email: survey@watsons-property.co.uk
