Gleeds Worldwide's Richard Steer sheds some light on how the economic crisis is affecting quantity surveyors around the world.

What impact is the credit crunch having on quantity surveyors?
It's terrible. In a recent survey in the Times, quantity surveyors were the most professionals being laid off. It's having a very big impact on the UK and the whole of Europe, and nowadays the banks are global so it's affecting everywhere. The UK is going to take the longest to come out of recession, and it's the worst hit. The commercial sector at the moment is completely dead. Projects are just stopped. In infrastructure, one or two of the major contractors have actually reported very good profits and one or two of the engineers are optimistic, but quite a lot of that is still feeding through from last year. If you look at our figures, we're fine up until the middle of the year. Fortunately, because we've all learned from previous recessions, everyone's getting into position in advance with their redundancies or pay reviews. 2010 is going to be harder than 2009 because nobody's commissioning work now to start to fill up 2010.

You mentioned that quantity surveying is one of the most impacted professions.
We're not sure whether it's because we're on finer margins or whether perhaps we're more expeditious now than we used to be and have actually responded more quickly to the issue. Certainly the architects are affected before us, but it seems that the big QS practices have gotten very large with their workloads over the last couple of years, and are having to respond by getting rid of more people. Up until September last year, everything was absolutely fine, there was no indication of any problems, and between September and December we saw the cancelling and stalling and delaying of contracts. I think what's happened is that we've taken very quick, very decisive action within a short period.

Has the recession changed the way your industry is working?
Yes. We do a lot of land surveying nowadays which we probably wouldn't have done in the past. That's an area that can grow because people still need buildings surveyed, or their sites surveyed, almost regardless of the economic situation. The whole world's been affected and so we have to look at diversification into different services, different functions and different ways of looking at the work. There are a lot more disputes coming up too. We've got quite a strong dispute resolution team and they are getting used all over the world as contractors try to claw back margins on projects that they're halfway through and clients haven't got the money to pay for.

There's a push to increase existing stock and to refurbish rather than build. Is there a market for you in that area?
Yes, particularly in the UK where we're involved with old, existing buildings as much as we are with new build. Land is very expensive so there's a tradition of refurbishing existing buildings, working behind existing facades and working in city centres. The opportunities for new build are a lot more limited in the UK than they are in a country like America or Australia. So yes, that is part of our skill and actually, cost management is even more significant when you're dealing with existing or old buildings. Working in confined sites, in city centres with old buildings and not knowing everything about the building is where you really need proper cost control.

Are you making a stronger case now for the role of the quantity surveyor in the cost control of a project?
Now is the perfect time for people to be using quantity surveyors. All the ingredients are there to build buildings and to build buildings on budget - apart from the fact that there's no money coming from the banks. The sites are cheap, the contractors' margins are low, everybody's keen, there's endless opportunities, but banks aren't lending any money to kick things off. Apart from that, now people are far more conscious of the bottom line and bringing projects in on budget, so hopefully the day of the QS will come back in the not too distant future.

Do you think that the whole 'sustainability' concept is going to take a hit because of the economic crisis?
Unfortunately it will take a hit, which is very, very disappointing. At least we've gotten somewhere and sustainability has become established in people's minds and in the designer's way of working. Clients will not be as willing to spend money on sustainability as they would have been in the past. A couple of years ago it was almost becoming a showcase. If you talk about the Middle East, it was what we call eco-bling, you know, 'I've got a more sustainable building than you.' That might go out, but everyone now has an awareness, a consciousness of the need for environmental control and sustainability, and we won't lose that base line.

How has the profession changed over the past 10 years?
Over the last 10 years it probably hasn't changed. Over the last 25 years it's definitely changed. There's been a new method of measurement brought out by the RICS in the UK, and it's very different from what was standard SMM7 25 or 30 years ago. It involved very detailed measurements then and people would worry about the minutia of a building.

What is the measurement process like in Australia?
(David Kelly, managing director of Gleeds Australia)
The Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors have an agreement with the Master Builders Association which basically means that any changes to what we call the standard method of measurement, SMM5, which is the Australian version, have to be agreed to by the MBA. We've been trying to get the MBA to agree to a more modern way of measuring composite items for 10 years, however the MBA have been stopping it ever since. Consequently, we now have draft methods of measurement which are used as the standard method of measurement in states like NSW and Victoria, and in other states like Queensland and Western Australia, they're still using SMM5.

Are a lot of people attracted to this profession?
Nowadays, yes, and the people we're attracting are relatively dynamic. In the past, being a quantity surveyor involved the rather pedantic measurement of quantities in preparation for a building. You had to be a certain type of person to see that as a fine art. I remember when I started, being allowed to measure the marble work in a banking hall was the epitome, the top of somebody's career, because it was very expensive material and they had to get it exactly right. I mean, you'd laugh nowadays, but the people who are getting involved in it now are interested in the financial side of the process, and are probably not so pedantic about what they're doing and are a lot more flexible.