Sean Tompkins, Chief Executive RICS

Fancy building the 2022 world cup stadium in Qatar? Or advising the Bank of England on subsidies for first time buyers? Perhaps being part of the Disaster Emergency Committee tasked with rebuilding Haiti following the earthquake?  Or working with the United Nations to ensure global food security?

The scale of these world challenges mean we need the brightest and the best to work in the UK and overseas and to do that means tapping into talent from diverse backgrounds and skillsets across the full breadth of the UK workforce. 

As the CEO of the world’s largest professional body, which sets and enforces standards across land, property, infrastructure and construction, Sean is passionate about diversity in all its forms. He is launching ‘Surveying the Future’, a new campaign to attract more talent to this rapidly changing industry.

“Organisations within the industry recognise that greater diversity of thought is likely to be their biggest business advantage in the future.  One of the problems is that influencers, such as teachers, parents and careers advisors are not aware of the broad range of surveying careers.”

President of RICS, Louise Brooke-Smith, firmly believes that one of the greatest challenges is the leadership deficit, particularly in a number of areas where skills and collaborative leadership styles excel:

 “Encouraging people to do better and achieve more can be helped significantly by making success visible, and that’s relevant across all career paths. Our campaign will really drive through change in this area and highlight a broad diversity of talented professionals who are shaping the world we live in.”

 Find your profession in the industry, visit: www.rics.org/uk/the-profession and follow us on Twitter: #SurveyingtheFuture

Name:                  Dr Paul Cruddace
Age:                    44
Position:             Product Strategy
Employer:           Ordnance Survey
Based:                Southampton

After a weeks’ work experience sitting in a bank, I knew that it wasn’t for me, but didn’t have a clue what career to pursue! My Dad, who worked at the local FE college, suggested that it might be a good idea to look at what courses were on offer. It was at an open evening that I was lucky enough to meet my future tutor, Chris Little, who taught a BTEC diploma in Land Surveying, and was incredibly enthusiastic about the course. What appealed was that is seemed to combine all the things I was interested in - maths, geography, travel and technology – and just seemed to be the perfect fit.

So, at 16, I enrolled and combined it with two further courses, A levels in Surveying and Maths. Towards the end of the two years, I approached Newcastle University and got accepted onto their bachelor course in Surveying.

At the end of my course, I was offered the opportunity of continuing to study for a PhD, but this time in Greece, researching earthquake hazard assessment using very precise GPS technology, seismology and geology. This then led me, after the completion of my PhD, to a technical sales role at Ashtech, a GPS manufacturer, and later to Ordnance Survey (where I’ve now been for 14 years).

I would thoroughly recommend a career in surveying to any person starting out or looking to re-train. Before I started out, I simply thought that surveying would be a great way for me to spend my life outdoors. But in actual fact, the industry offers so much more than that.

While it’s highly technical and well respected, as you might expect, it’s also hugely varied.  It gives you a real range of transferable skills, such as an ability to develop strong judgment and analytical skills, and also provides access and insight into other industries and professions – from Government, to insurance and retail – helping them find solutions to solve their problems. That’s hugely satisfying.