Nina’s Take: Surveying Can Feel Lonely

Speaker: 00:08
Hello and welcome. You’re listening to This Is Surveying, the podcast shining a light on the people, ideas, and stories shaping this incredible profession. I’m Nina Young, founder of Surveyors UK and the Surveying Room, the community bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and making surveying visible. So for now, let’s dive into our latest episode. Hello everybody and welcome to My Take. This is the bi-monthly solo episode that sits between our guest interviews. We’re now on the fourth episode of the podcast. And before I get into today’s topic, I want to say a big thank you. The feedback I have received about the podcast has been incredible. People have been listening while walking the dog, on the treadmill, driving between jobs, or even catching up in the evenings on YouTube. I’ve had messages from surveyors across the country and lots of people asking about coming on as a guest or guest recommendations. People are saying exactly the kind of podcast surveyors need or want it. So that means a lot to me. This is something I’ve wanted to do for years. I’m really enjoying the conversations and the opportunity to bring voices together. If I could do guest episodes every week, I would. And long term, that’s where I want the podcast to go. But for now, you’ve got to put up with me for my take in between. So let’s crack on because I know how everyone is very busy in the run up to Christmas. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what it actually feels like as a surveyor at this time of year. Not necessarily the technical side so much, but the human side. It’s the parts that people really don’t discuss. Many surveyors work alone. You travel alone, you assess sites, land, assets, projects, you write your reports alone. I think independence is a big part of the job, but it can slip into isolation. Speaking to surveyors across many different pathways, your environments vary, but the themes don’t. I think you carry a lot of responsibility on your own. You make judgment calls that matter, you manage risk that people never see. You do complex work, often in pressure-filled environments and contexts, and you do most of it alone. I do see a lot of pride across the profession and a lot of pride in what you do. But there are long days, long drives, constant switching between tasks, clients, admin, reporting. It is really demanding work, and I think it’s handled by individuals who rarely get the space to talk to each other. And yes, I feel some of this in my own work too. There is huge knowledge across surveying, people with decades of experience, people entering the field eager to learn, and those in niche roles who understand things the wider profession barely sees. Many surveyors have told me this is why they join the surveying room. Not just to share, but to learn. Every day is a school day, comes up again and again, and this is true across every discipline. But silos exist sadly, and disciplines tend to stay in their own lane and stay separate. Networks stay separate, yet the experiences overlap. Confidence, pressure, judgment, regulation, learning, dealing with clients or stakeholders, the mental load. These threads run through everyone’s work, which is why the surveying room is designed to be open across groups, not boxed in by discipline. And I think this mix is what makes it even more valuable. You see it in every week in the weekly dig. It’s an open informal chat on Thursday evenings where people drop in from completely different backgrounds, and the conversations reflect that. We’ve had party wall and geospatial surveyors working through boundary questions and challenges together. We’ve talked about retrofit updates before they were made public. We’ve had conversations about dyslexia, social media, bad reviews, confidence, APC challenges across different pathways, isolation, being an introvert, neurodiversity, and the reality of working alone in a profession built on independence. We even had a comment in the surveying room from a marine cargo surveyor discussing battery safety with retrofit and residential surveyors. These conversations would rarely surface on LinkedIn, to be honest, because LinkedIn sadly narrows a lot of what you see. If you engage with one person or topic, your feed can shrink to match that. Someone told me recently they used to see a lot of my posts. Now they see maybe one a week. Nothing has changed on my side. That is the algorithm. It limits your world. At the exact moment, the profession needs broader connection. A community space built for the profession widens your world. You hear more, you learn more, you meet people you never come across in your typical working day. You gain insights that aren’t filtered out or shaped by engagement metrics on social media. This is why the cross-disciplinary element is so important. It is where the profession grows. Isolation is not just physical, it’s digital too. And this is something I see clearly in the AI space. I write a lot about AI and surveying and learning what AI can do. But none of it replaces talking to people, listening to their questions and their experiences and stories, understanding their concerns, seeing where misunderstandings come from. Many surveyors have told me they want clarity, they want the basics, they want to know how to use AI safely and practically without the jargon or hype. That is why I’m running a two-hour introductory webinar in January. It covers what generative AI actually is, how tools like your Jack GBTs, Claud’s, Geminis fit into the surveying world and how to use them safely within the right context. It is heavily subsidized and the early wait list offer brings it down to only £59 plus VAT. It will be recorded and you will have access to the slides and the full replay. I know January is tight with membership renewals, but I did not want to delay this and I think people need it ASAP. Too many of you have asked for something practical and accessible, and I hope this webinar is that starting point. We are already working on future sessions with experts in the field. And if you need someone to speak on AI at your events next year, get in touch. The bigger message isn’t about AI tools though, it’s about connection. Surveyors can be independent without being isolated, professionally, digitally, and technically. Cross-disciplined conversations strengthen the profession. Sharing makes everyone better. Community stops knowledge disappearing when people retire. It opens doors, it builds confidence, it helps you grow. So enough of that, and I don’t want any of this to be doom and gloom. I just want to say that I understand and I hear a lot from you about isolation. And it’s one of the things that I want to help with by the surveying room and of course his podcast. So before we wrap up, I want to finish with something lighter. Many of you know I do my DigiNo posts on LinkedIn. I couldn’t believe it when I realized I’ve now written more than a hundred of them and I’m up to I think number 123 for the last year. You tell me how much you enjoy them. They are long though, and I’m guessing you don’t want me reading out full essays in every episode. So instead I picked a few strange and interesting ones from around the world, because I do love a quiz and I do love trivia. So today’s Did you know? Did you know that Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the world without a single river? And did you know that in Russia, women outnumber men by around ten million? And finally, and apologies if you are eating, did you know that North Korean leader King Jong travels with his own private toilet so that no one can analyse his waste to determine his health status? I’ll let you decide whether that is paranoia or planning. Anyway, thank you for listening. Wherever you are traveling, assessing a site, whatever you’re doing. I just hope that this reminds you that you are part of a much wider profession. If you’re like me, you probably haven’t got any of your Christmas shopping done. I’m very much a lastminute.com. But either way, have a super week, and I’ll be back next week. Take care of yourself. Bye for now. Thank you for listening to This Is Surveying. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and supports the work we’re doing to raise awareness of the profession. You can also join the Surveying Room, the free and independent community from Surveys UK, bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and of course making surveying visible. Just head over to surveyors UK.com to learn more and join today. All the links discussed in today’s episode are included in the show notes.