Im 25 years old, I have 3 years experience working in an international Corporate firm and have just gotten my RIBA Architect qualification after going to Architecture school in England for 5 years. Im considering to do a masters in project management that is RICS accredited (Royal institute of Chartered Surveyors) and then do a 2 year structure training at a consultancy firm to obtain my RICS membership but my only concern is that i will not be doing any design work at all, as a project manager in a corporate architecture firm does see a bit of design in the first stages of the project. In consultancy you work for companies like cushman wakefield or CBRE and deal with just the paperworks and management of the project. My question is would a proffesional with a RIBA(royal institute of british architects) charter and a RICS chartered would he be highly regarded in the proffesion? My goal in the end is to work abroad for an international developer in Dubai or South America
Can't really address the specifics of the organizations you mention, but I've always thought it would be a good thing if more architecturally trained people were involved on the PM side of the table - delivering a good project's much more than just budget, schedule and VE. PM's have the ability to exert huge influence over the quality of the final project - too often that influence is detrimental.
However, I expect you'll be entering a world that doesn't fully understand (or appreciate) what you can offer - you'll have to break new ground to be effective and that may be difficult. Nevertheless, I applaud your ambition and wish you well.
I stepped aside from architecture for nearly three years to work for a master planning / program management firm. I learned a lot about how projects get built that I would have otherwise not experienced while working as a CAD Monkey. However, the desire to design grew stronger every day, and I realized that it's just not the developer's place to design. Comment, benchmark, and analyze designs for costs? Yes, but not actually design anything. I returned to architecture two and a half years ago and haven't looked back since.
quizzical's comments are valuable, but I find them a bit unrealistic. Yes, it could be done, but you will have a mountain of other responsibilities that will overshadow your willingness to affect the design.
If you have any inkling that you still want to design, I would think twice about moving to the developer's side.
RICS accredited MSc, preferably at UCL's Bartlett school. If you do it over two years rather than full-time in one year you'll be able to get a salary and your fees (£4,500-ish) paid for you by most of the large UK PM consultancies (EC Harris, MACE, Davis Langdon, Gardiner & Theobold, Faithful & Gould, M3, Arcadis etc.)
Some of the consultancies offer other consulting services such as Design Management, Sustainability, Risk, alongside their bread & butter Project Management and Quantity Surveying. With the MSc you'll be well placed to choose your team.
The salary is generally better than Architecture, and indeed many full RIBA and part I or part II do make the move into this type of consulting.
The experience that you have to date should help, and for progression in most of these companies RICS (or RIBA) is a requirement. In the end of the day it's mainly about your business card: BArch, DipArch, MSc, RIBA, RICS. That works within pretty much any construction related consultancy and if you really want to make money the developers will like it too.
You can have a large impact on the product of a project without wielding the pencil, and as a consultant (rather than architect) you should find yourself dealing with more, in quantity and quality, architects than you would if you were within an architecture firm.
I should add that the consultancies that I have listed are on the construction side of the industry, while Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE, Jones Lang LaSalle etc. are on the sales side of the industry. the two sides are very different culturally, as is the likely involvement with the rest of the industry.
Aug 4, 08 12:37 pm ·
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Going in to Consultancy PM (Rics accreditation)
Im 25 years old, I have 3 years experience working in an international Corporate firm and have just gotten my RIBA Architect qualification after going to Architecture school in England for 5 years. Im considering to do a masters in project management that is RICS accredited (Royal institute of Chartered Surveyors) and then do a 2 year structure training at a consultancy firm to obtain my RICS membership but my only concern is that i will not be doing any design work at all, as a project manager in a corporate architecture firm does see a bit of design in the first stages of the project. In consultancy you work for companies like cushman wakefield or CBRE and deal with just the paperworks and management of the project. My question is would a proffesional with a RIBA(royal institute of british architects) charter and a RICS chartered would he be highly regarded in the proffesion? My goal in the end is to work abroad for an international developer in Dubai or South America
Can't really address the specifics of the organizations you mention, but I've always thought it would be a good thing if more architecturally trained people were involved on the PM side of the table - delivering a good project's much more than just budget, schedule and VE. PM's have the ability to exert huge influence over the quality of the final project - too often that influence is detrimental.
However, I expect you'll be entering a world that doesn't fully understand (or appreciate) what you can offer - you'll have to break new ground to be effective and that may be difficult. Nevertheless, I applaud your ambition and wish you well.
Good luck.
I stepped aside from architecture for nearly three years to work for a master planning / program management firm. I learned a lot about how projects get built that I would have otherwise not experienced while working as a CAD Monkey. However, the desire to design grew stronger every day, and I realized that it's just not the developer's place to design. Comment, benchmark, and analyze designs for costs? Yes, but not actually design anything. I returned to architecture two and a half years ago and haven't looked back since.
quizzical's comments are valuable, but I find them a bit unrealistic. Yes, it could be done, but you will have a mountain of other responsibilities that will overshadow your willingness to affect the design.
If you have any inkling that you still want to design, I would think twice about moving to the developer's side.
RICS accredited MSc, preferably at UCL's Bartlett school. If you do it over two years rather than full-time in one year you'll be able to get a salary and your fees (£4,500-ish) paid for you by most of the large UK PM consultancies (EC Harris, MACE, Davis Langdon, Gardiner & Theobold, Faithful & Gould, M3, Arcadis etc.)
Some of the consultancies offer other consulting services such as Design Management, Sustainability, Risk, alongside their bread & butter Project Management and Quantity Surveying. With the MSc you'll be well placed to choose your team.
The salary is generally better than Architecture, and indeed many full RIBA and part I or part II do make the move into this type of consulting.
The experience that you have to date should help, and for progression in most of these companies RICS (or RIBA) is a requirement. In the end of the day it's mainly about your business card: BArch, DipArch, MSc, RIBA, RICS. That works within pretty much any construction related consultancy and if you really want to make money the developers will like it too.
You can have a large impact on the product of a project without wielding the pencil, and as a consultant (rather than architect) you should find yourself dealing with more, in quantity and quality, architects than you would if you were within an architecture firm.
I should add that the consultancies that I have listed are on the construction side of the industry, while Cushman & Wakefield, CBRE, Jones Lang LaSalle etc. are on the sales side of the industry. the two sides are very different culturally, as is the likely involvement with the rest of the industry.
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