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Quantity surveyor — tasks, one by one
The unit of analysis is the task, not the job title. Each one below carries its direction, whether the judgement rests on evidence or on platform inference, the reasoning, and what it does not establish.
Every task on this page#
Measuring quantities
Automating✓ Evidence-backedWorking out how much concrete, steel, brickwork, finishes and services a design needs — the take-off every estimate rests on.
When a design exists as a digital model, many quantities can be extracted from it rather than measured by hand from drawings. RICS's 2024 digitalisation report found that about 48% of respondents provide and receive data through digital models for quantity take-off and cost estimating — the highest of the functions it asked about — up only from 46% in its 2021 and 2022 surveys.
Sharing data through models is not the same as quantities produced without a surveyor: the model is only as complete as the design, and 24% of respondents share no data this way at all.
Estimating and cost planning
Being augmented✓ Evidence-backedPricing a design at each stage, setting and managing a budget, and advising the client on what a change will cost before it is made.
Estimating software prices measured quantities from rate libraries and past projects, and models make it faster to re-price a changed design. In RICS's survey, 15% of respondents said their organisation consistently uses model-driven processes for cost estimation, prediction, planning and control on all projects and 23% on most; 37% said on none. The judgement about risk, market conditions and what a client can afford stays with the surveyor.
The survey measures consistent use of models, not artificial intelligence, and its respondents are mostly in Asia Pacific; it does not show estimates produced without a surveyor.
Bills of quantities and tender documents
Being augmented≈ Platform inferenceTurning measured quantities into bills and pricing documents that contractors bid against, and comparing the bids that come back.
Software assembles bills from measured quantities and standard descriptions, and can line up tender returns for comparison. Describing work so it cannot be priced two ways, and spotting a bid that is cheap because it misread the job, is where the surveyor's judgement goes.
This rests on what estimating and tendering software can do, not on a measurement of how bills are now prepared.
Valuing work done and pricing changes
Being augmented≈ Platform inferenceMonthly valuations for payment, pricing variations as the design and site change, and agreeing the final account.
Site progress data, photographs, drones and digital records make it easier to see what has been built and to trace a change back to its instruction. Deciding what a variation is worth, and agreeing it with the other side, is a negotiation between people with a contract in front of them.
This rests on what site-monitoring and contract software can do, not on a measurement of how valuations are now carried out.
Claims and disputes
Still human-led≈ Platform inferencePreparing and answering claims for delay and disruption, and negotiating or giving evidence when the money is contested.
Software can assemble the records a claim needs and draft a first version of the argument. Negotiating a settlement, and standing behind a figure in adjudication or arbitration, rests with a person whose professional judgement the parties can question.
This rests on how claims and disputes are resolved, not on a measurement of how much of that work now uses software.
Whole-life cost and carbon
New task≈ Platform inferenceEstimating what a building will cost to run and maintain, and the carbon in its materials and operation, alongside its construction cost.
Clients and regulators increasingly ask for life-cycle costs and whole-life carbon assessments alongside the construction estimate, and quantity surveyors already hold the measured quantities these start from. RICS's report finds these are the areas where digital tools are used least, which is where the new work is.
The survey measures how little digital tools are used for carbon and whole-life work, not how much of that work surveyors now do or are paid for.