Let Estate Building Surveyor
- Employer
- The National Trust
- Location
- Bodmin, Cornwall
- Salary
- £40,000
- Closing date
- 28 May 2023
View more
- Sector
- Property, Construction
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Specialism
- Building Surveyor, Estates Management, Residential Property
- Business Type
- Public Sector
Job Details
Let Estate Building Surveyor
Salary: £40,000 per annum
Contract type: Fixed Term f/t (37.5 hrs pw for 30 months)
Closing date: 28th May 2023
Address: Lanhydrock, Bodmin, PL30 4DE
Summary
We are looking for an experienced Building Surveyor to join the Let Estate Management Team. You will help to manage a large and varied Let Estate portfolio across the whole of Cornwall. The portfolio includes tenanted residential, commercial and agricultural properties as well as a significant number of Holiday Cottages.
The Trust supports hybrid working and is happy to explore working arrangements that strike the right balance for you and the Trust. We anticipate that 3 days a week of site work is required in order to complete the requirements of the role.
Due to the travel required for this position, candidates must hold a full, clean driving license and have access to a vehicle for work purposes. Business mileage is payable, claimed through expenses.
The role is available on a 3 year fixed term contract, offering a salary of £40,000 per annum which will be reviewed annually (in January).
What it's like to work here
You will be part of a collaborative and dynamic Estate Management team looking after all aspects of our tenanted property portfolio, helping us to fulfill our responsibilities as a good landlord.
Reporting to a Senior Building Surveyor, the Buildings team works mainly on historic buildings, and is pivotal in preparing the Cornish Let Estate for the future, managing projects and ensuring high levels of maintenance quality and efficiency.
The role offers an interesting variety of work, a good work-life balance and provides you with a real opportunity to make a difference in conserving our historic buildings and helping us become more sustainable as we respond to the implications of climate change using up to date techniques and technologies.
What you'll be doing
In addition to managing maintenance, repair and refurbishment projects across the portfolio, you will set up and deliver a programme of building condition surveys to inform the programme for future maintenance works, helping improve our planning and budgeting. Working collaboratively with the wider Estate Management Team you will help plan a rolling five year planned maintenance programme, and to ensure we achieve the required standards of care, maintenance and compliance.
Another area of work will be looking at the many redundant and unused buildings and exploring how these could be used to generate income through adaptive reuse, with particular emphasis on energy efficiency and renewable energy.
The package
The National Trust has the motto ‘For everyone, for ever’ at its heart. We’re working hard to create an inclusive culture, where everyone feels they belong. It’s important that our people reflect and represent the diversity of the communities and audiences we serve. We welcome and value difference, so when we say we’re for everyone, we want everyone to be welcome in our teams too.
- Substantial pension scheme of up to 10% basic salary
- Free entry to National Trust places for you, a guest and your children (under 18)
- Tax free childcare scheme
- Rental deposit loan scheme
- Season ticket loan
- Perks at work discounts i.e. gym memberships, shopping discount codes, cinema discounts
- Holiday allowance up to 32 days relating to length of service, plus holiday purchase scheme, subject to meeting minimum criteria.
- Flexible working whenever possible
- Employee assistance programme
- Free parking at most locations
- Independent financial advice
Click here to find out more about the benefits we offer to support you.
Company
The National Trust has over 255,000 hectares of land, of which about 80% is farmed by tenants. We also have 4,133 rented cottages, 1,978 commercial tenancies, 1,806 agricultural tenancies, 1,014 way leaves and easements and an investment and operational property portfolio valued at £82.87m, of which £66.35m is specified as investment property.
The management of these tenancies and assets, together with the relationship with our tenants, underpins our £40m+ annual rental income and is absolutely essential to the delivery of our conservation work.
Build our future
Think you know what it means to work in building surveying at the National Trust? Think again. As the largest building conservation organisation in Europe, the Trust sets out to protect the nation’s heritage – and building surveying plays a vital role in that. Nick Dutton, brand new Lead Building Surveyor for the London South East region, shares his immense enthusiasm for the profession and reveals why the National Trust offers a unique opportunity to thrive, and further a career in building surveying.
One of the major strategic aims of the National Trust is to look after the places we love – and as building surveyors, individuals like Nick Dutton, are doing just that – demonstrating how vital the profession is to the cause of the entire organisation. The building surveying team deal with all issues concerning buildings, from compliance, day to day and cyclical repairs, all the way up to large building projects. This means that a career in building surveying at the National Trust offers incredible breadth and variety.
London South East is one of six regions in the National Trust, but contains around 25 percent of properties with 192 Grade 1 and Grade 2 star listed buildings, circa 890 let estate cottages, 32 registered parks and gardens, 178 ancient monuments and almost 3,000 hectares of land. It’s an incredibly important region and the largest community of building surveyors within the National Trust.
“The collection of buildings is both unique and diverse requiring special skills, care and attention – and most of all a love for buildings,” says Nick. “There are not many organisations or roles able to offer this level of variety – from the very small, to the very grand and everything in between. There’s no doubt that working in building surveying at the National Trust represents a truly unique opportunity.”
Making a difference
Since he was very young, Nick has been aware of the National Trust and he’s always had a desire to work for the organisation given the range of properties and their conservation ethos. “It’s a unique charity, preserving a great deal of the country’s heritage for the future.. Having worked in a number of building surveying roles both within consultancy and client side, it was the right time for a change. I’d reached the point in my career where I was ready to pursue my dreams, a career that really fulfilled me.”
Collaboration in conservation
Nick’s just two months into his role at the National Trust, but it lives up to everything he hoped it would be. In fact, it’s the ability to work with a group of people who share the same ethos and values as him, with a similar outlook on historic buildings that has really brought the role to life for him.
Nick’s role as Lead Building Surveyor is a new one for the National Trust that came about following an investment into the building surveying function within the organisation. As such, Nick and the other regional leads are working closely together to ensure the building surveying community is acting as one. They work at raising standards across the board, promoting collaborative working within the building surveying community, championing the conservation work undertaken by the Trust and role of building surveying, and acting as mentors and technical leads for their regions.
“I work in close collaboration with the other regional Lead Building Surveyors to ensure we’re working in a consistent fashion. We share ideas, knowledge and techniques across the regions, so that best practice is shared and achieved across the country. It’s a very collegiate vibe, which I’ve not experienced in this way before.”
For Nick, the best part of his role is promoting the skills of the building surveyors and championing the work of the National Trust to an internal and external audience. He’s reaching out to organisations and individuals who share the organisation’s aspirations, as well as those that don’t. Which can be challenging and exhilarating all at once. Whether it’s creating new collaborations, or joining forces with amenity societies and conservation charities there’s always a new challenge ahead. Being able to promote not just the vital work the National Trust does for the nation, but the building surveying profession as a whole, makes his job incredibly inspiring.
If you’d like to make a difference, and give back to conservation, join us and help us deliver our vision.
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