Exploring how to support technical specialists to achieve recognition and join us

Have you heard the question, are you ‘master of one’ or the ‘jack of all’ trades? When looking at career progression, we often talk about working to become a manager and a generalist or specialising in a specific area of the construction industry. Being a manager is a familiar path, where people get to experience staff development, policies and processes etc. However, there is another route to success by becoming a specialist, for example, a stonemason, a CAD or BIM technician, off-site manufacturing, building control, or a health and safety specialist.

It takes more time to be a specialist in any discipline. That’s why specialists often earn more, even at entry-level. They have tightly defined job roles, and organisations usually employ fewer specialists than generalists, meaning that the dependence on specialists is high, making them more valuable and difficult to replace. Over time, specialists can become thought leaders in their area of expertise, making them highly sought-after professionals. However, CIOB hasn’t previously had a consistent method of benchmarking and assessing the level of a technical specialist.

 
We offer MCIOB for those in manager-level roles and FCIOB for strategic decision-makers; however, if someone has spent 30 years honing their craft in a specialist area, until now, CIOB hasn’t had a clear pathway for them to achieve recognition for their skills and experience. 

We are exploring how we support technical specialists in construction

To match the diversity of our industry and the needs of the industry we serve, we continue to invest in evolving our membership offer. We have been working with members and stakeholders throughout the industry to develop a membership grade for technical specialists.

We started by surveying members and stakeholders across the industry and have heard clear interest in a technical specialist focused grade. (2020 update available here).

To meet this need, we are exploring the idea of a new “Technical” grade that will assess the technical competence and skills of those working in a specialist role. We are taking pains to make sure any new qualification will include a robust method of assessment that reveals a person’s competency to ensure new members meet our high standards. We will never diminish the credibility of CIOB membership and only seek to enhance what it is that members have achieved. We fiercely protect our promise to maintain standards and have our qualifications externally benchmarked to prove the quality of our accreditations.

We have also started a working group looking at whether or not it is viable to introduce pathways for different specialists to ensure that we support the range of disciples and areas of expertise that make up the breadth of the construction industry.

We hope to be able to provide an update on the progress of these ideas later this year. 

If you are a company that would like to be involved in a pilot program for this, please get in touch with Mandy Mills, Head of Quality Assurance, [email protected]