Quantity Surveying MSc
Why choose this course?
Quantity surveyors play a key role in the construction industry, ensuring that development costs are appropriately and accurately managed. Kingston University is a long-established Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors partnership university, and this course will equip you with the skills and knowledge to start you on a career that offers enormous scope for team working, travel and financial rewards.
Whatever your first degree, this course will help you apply your skills and abilities to the quantity surveying profession. Through project and teamwork, you will develop knowledge and understanding of procurement, construction contracts, construction economics, and cost planning. You will also be trained in research methodology. Through a dissertation (research project), you will be able to focus on an area of interest, gaining valuable research skills. You will develop a range of professional skills to prepare you for your career, including problem solving and organisation, data collation, review and synopsis, time management and computing.
| Mode | Duration | Attendance | Start date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full time | 1 year | 2 days a week | September 2023 |
| Full time | 2 years including professional placement | 2 days a week plus placement year | September 2023 |
| Part time | 2 years | 1 day a week | September 2023 |
| Location | Penrhyn Road |
Reasons to choose Kingston University
- You will develop the core competencies required of a Chartered Quantity Surveyor.
- There is a focus on the EU and UK legal framework relating to construction, sustainable construction technology, and project management.
Accreditation
This course is fully accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB).
The MSc programme delivered at our partner institutions is not currently accredited by the RICS or CIOB.
What you will study
This conversion masters provides an opportunity to graduates from disciplines other than surveying to convert their transferable skills and extend their abilities in a critical way to the quantity surveying profession. You will develop in-depth knowledge and understanding of procurement, construction contracts and their administration. You will acquire sound knowledge of construction economics and cost planning. The curriculum further places emphasis on the EU and UK legal framework relating to construction, sustainable construction technology and project management. In addition to the core taught modules, you will receive training on research methodology and undertake a dissertation (research project).
Please note that this is an indicative list of modules and is not intended as a definitive list. Those listed here may also be a mixture of core and optional modules.
For a student to go on placement they are required to pass every module first time with no reassessments. It is the responsibility of individual students to find a suitable paid placement. Students will be supported by our dedicated placement team in securing this opportunity.
Modules
Core modules
Applied Sustainable Construction Technology and Measurement
30 credits
This module aims to help you gain in-depth working knowledge of construction technology and a systematic understanding of regulatory and procedural matters relating to the sustainable construction of low and high rise buildings. The module further seeks to enable you to apply your developed construction technology background on the quantification of building work. You will gain working knowledge of the current methods of measurement and critical understanding of specifications. Delivery is by a series of lectures, tutorials and workshops. The module is assessed by two pieces of coursework and a written examination.
Contract Law Administration and Practice
30 credits
The module aims to enable you to develop deep understanding and critical knowledge of the development process and the roles of key parties in procurement and contractual arrangements as they apply primarily in the UK construction industry. In addition, you will gain deep and broad knowledge of standard contract forms used in the UK and abroad and the legal duties and responsibilities of the parties involved in construction contracts. The module is taught by a series of lectures and tutorials and you will be expected to take an active part in applying your knowledge to worked examples within the tutorial format. Assessment will comprise two pieces of coursework and a written examination.
Design Economics and Cost Planning
30 credits
The module seeks to help you develop deep understanding of the principles of construction economics and building price estimating and their application in the UK construction context. Emphasis is placed on cost planning techniques based on elemental analysis and the relationship between building morphology and costs. You will develop the ability to critically appraise the use of techniques such as value management, whole-life costing, risk management and bench marking and be able to competently apply the concepts and practice of construction pricing in real-life scenarios. The module is taught by a series of lectures, tutorials and workshops. Assessment is by two pieces of coursework.
Management Consultancy
30 credits
This module aims to explore theories and applications of management consultancy in the context of delivering corporate objectives. In doing so, the module enables you to gain in depth knowledge of project management principles with emphasis on project programming, planning and control techniques. The subject material further places emphasis on development appraisals and sources of funding enabling you to develop a systematic approach to the preparation of a residual valuation and development appraisal.
Dissertation
60 credits
The overall aim of the module is to allow you to develop research skills and gain an appreciation of a subject area of your own choosing. In undertaking the work that is required you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and competence in reviewing existing published literature and data and through the use of your own efforts apply one or more of a range of research methods to collect and analyse data and draw well-founded conclusions as a result of your research.
The module allows you to study an area of interest in significant depth and allows you to demonstrate a clear understanding of what has been learnt through a variety of means – a literature review, a research proposal, an oral presentation and a substantial dissertation.
Optional modules
Professional Placement
120 credits
The Professional Placement module is a core module for those students following a masters programme that incorporates an extended professional placement. It provides students with the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills in an appropriate working environment and develops and enhances key employability and subject specific skills in their chosen discipline. Students may wish to use the placement experience as a platform for the major project or future career.
It is the responsibility of individual students to find and secure a suitable placement opportunity. This should not normally involve more than two placements which must be completed over a minimum period of 10 months and within a maximum of 12 months. The placement must be approved by the Course Leader, prior to commencement to ensure its suitability. Students seeking placements will have access to the standard placement preparation activities offered by Student Engagement and Enhancement (SEE) group.
Read more about the postgraduate work placement scheme.
Work placement scheme
Many postgraduate courses at Kingston University allow students to take the option of a 12-month work placement as part of their course. The responsibility for finding the work placement is with the student; we cannot guarantee the placement, just the opportunity to undertake it. You may find securing a professional placement difficult as they are highly competitive and challenging, but they are also incredibly rewarding. It is very important to prepare and apply yourself if this is the route you wish to take. Employers look for great written and oral communication skills and an excellent CV/portfolio. As the work placement is an assessed part of the course, it is covered by a student's Student Route visa.
Find out more about the postgraduate work placement scheme.
Entry requirements
Teaching and assessment
Who teaches this course?
The course is taught by the Department of Civil Engineering, Construction and Surveying. Staff have a wide range of experience across research and industry and continue to practice and research at the cutting edge of their discipline.
Our programmes have been designed with your aspirations, needs and abilities in mind, and are aimed at developing your specialist skills, deepening your understanding and gaining new insights and perspectives to equip you for a professional career ahead.
Academic staff in the department are bonded in an interdisciplinary team of civil and structural engineers, material scientists, geologists, hydrologists, construction managers, building and quantity surveyors with professional practice and applied research backgrounds. Many of us are nationally and internationally recognised leaders in our areas of specialism and we are frequently invited to undertake high-profile external research and consultancy work.
Having developed our courses with the working world in mind, we offer hands-on student experiences such as testing in our exemplary laboratory facilities in structures, materials, concrete, geotechnics and hydraulics that are used for teaching and research. Knowledge is also gained from field trips for both undergraduates and postgraduates; site visits and industrial placements; employability support via our strong partnerships with industry, professional institutions and learned societies.
Our teaching is engaging and practice-focused and supported by site visits and invited guest lecturers by our industrial liaisons and strong alumni network. Our approach to assessment is project-driven and seeks to equip students with a range of competencies and transferrable skills thus boosting their employability prospects.
Postgraduate students may run or assist in lab sessions and may also contribute to the teaching of seminars under the supervision of the module leader.
Fees for this course
Additional costs
Depending on the programme of study, there may be extra costs that are not covered by tuition fees which students will need to consider when planning their studies. Tuition fees cover the cost of your teaching, assessment and operating University facilities such as the library, access to shared IT equipment and other support services. Accommodation and living costs are not included in our fees.
Where a course has additional expenses, we make every effort to highlight them. These may include optional field trips, materials (e.g. art, design, engineering), security checks such as DBS, uniforms, specialist clothing or professional memberships.
Our modern teaching environment
There is a wide range of facilities for practical work at our Penrhyn Road campus, where this course is based. You will have access to a modern environment with the latest technology and industry-standard equipment, including:
- extensive materials and structures facility for concrete, masonry, steel and timber;
- geotechnical and hydraulics testing facilities; and
- surveying equipment, such as satellite global-positioning systems.
Dedicated computer-aided design facilities include:
- a range of CAD/CAM packages, such as Ideas, SolidWorks and AutoCad;
- finite element analysis
- computational fluid dynamics; and
- virtual instrumentation.
What our students say
What this course offers you
- This course develops the core competencies required of the Chartered Quantity Surveyor and prepares you for a career in this area. There is an emphasis on project and team work.
- The dissertation/research project allows you to focus on an area of interest to yourself and gain valuable research skills.
- The course is fully accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and the Chartered Institute of Building.
- All members of staff are research active or professional practitioners, which keeps your learning cutting edge (read more in the Research areas section).
- The modules will equip you with a range of professional skills. Alongside your academic studies, you will develop skills in:
- problem solving and organisation
- data collation, review and synopsis
- communication (oral, written and electronic)
- time management
- computing
- cooperation and teamwork.
- We offer a part-time study option to help you fit your MA around other commitments.
After you graduate
Graduates have progressed to roles in organisations such as Mace, Laing O'Rourke, Trabur, Transport for London, Willmott Dixon and Wates.
Engineering research
Many academic staff are engaged in a range of research and consultancy activities funded by the Research Councils, the European Union, the government, trade unions and industry. These activities ensure our staff are in touch with the latest industry thinking and bring best practice to your studies.
Changes from 1 August 2022
Up until 31 July 2022, this course was taught in the Faculty of Science Engineering and Computing. For students enrolling from September 2022, the course will be delivered by the Faculty of Engineering, Computing, and the Environment. There will be no impact on the teaching or the award of the degree.
Course changes and regulations
The information on this page reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. To improve your student experience and the quality of your degree, we may review and change the material information of this course. Course changes explained.
Programme Specifications for the course are published ahead of each academic year.
Regulations governing this course can be found on our website.
