Competencies of quantity surveyors in a developing economy

Abstract

As a prominent construction professional in the construction industry, quantity surveyor shall be sharp with required competencies to overcome the challenges within a developing economy context. Therefore the study is directed to identify the gap between the current level of competencies and the required level of competencies of quantity surveyors in a developing economy and providing recommendations to bridge the gap. This research was driven into a mixed approach which includes desk review, expert surveys, questionnaire survey and expert interviews as data collection methods in order to accomplish the research aim. Initially a desk review was conducted to identify the competencies of quantity surveyors. Then an expert survey was carried out to build up a list of competencies in given context. After a questionnaire survey was conducted to seek the current level of competencies and then expert interviews were conducted to check the required level of competencies and the collected data were analysed with descriptive statistics to determine the gap. Mean, Standard deviation and Mode were used as analyzing tools to calculate the gap between. Further, recommendations were derived through expert interviews to bridge the identified gap by adapting the content analysis method. Continuous professional development programmes for quantity surveyors and periodical changes to the curriculum of quantity surveying academic courses were the common recommendations given. Within them, it is essential to contain development appraisals, financial management during construction, coordinating cash flows, resolving disputes and BIM management competencies as those are lacking in the given context.