Millenials: Profiling the South African quantity surveyors of the future

Abstract

The future growth and prosperity of an organisation or in this case of the professional discipline of quantity surveying in South Africa have strong links with effective succes-sion planning. The next generation will be measured on how well they will be able to build on the successes and stature of the preceding generations. The success and prosperi-ty that the South Africa quantity surveying profession will enjoy during the next decade or more rests on the shoulders of the current generation of new entrants and young profes-sionals recently established in the profession. This younger generation of professionals also belongs to the age group often referred to as millennials.Millennials are people born between 1980 – 2000 and who are therefore currently be-tween 21 to 41 years of age. In 2020, approximately 60% of all registered quantity sur-veyors in South Africa were millennials. This cohort will become the future leaders and visionaries to carry the profession of quantity surveying into the future.Contrasting to previous generations the millennials have grown up and were educated and trained in the electronic and digital age. Their differing roots may carry with it chal-lenges that may hamper effective communication with the current leadership of the pro-fession. The better the current leaders are able to know and understand the millennials in their fold, the more likely a successfull passing of the batten to the next generation will become. This study is based on a questionnaire from the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors, assisted by the University of Pretoria. The questionnaire was distributed on a national bases to all the South African quantity surveyors on the data base. The study will evaluate various aspects that describe the profile of South African mil-lennial quantity surveyors. The aspects that will be compared include the age, gender, race, and locational spread of the millenails who participated in the survey. Additional aspects such as their academic qualifications, nationality, registration status with the Council of South African Quantity Surveyors, and their length of term of current em-ployment will be used to provide a reasonably detailed description of the younger genera-tion of South African quantity surveyors.The above information will be of value to the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors, to the management of quantity surveying firms and also to institutions such as universities that offer accredited academic programmes for the training of quantity sur-veyors. The findings can also be shared with quantity surveying professions across inter-national borders to compare against the profiles of their millennial cohorts of quantity surveyors.