Insights from a Graduate QS

The Quantum team is celebrating a monumental milestone for our Graduate QS Daniel as he celebrates six months since graduating!

We sat down with Daniel to chat through life as a Quantity Surveyor, and asked him about his six favourite projects:

Springside Flats

This was the first project that I’ve worked on from conception to handover. Construction started in March 2023 and finished in August 2023, as it was a two-flat renovation project.

This allowed me to see the project processes on a smaller scale, and with it being so close to the office, I was able to go down and see the constant progress throughout the job. The contractor and client were both fantastic and really helped my development as a QS.

Glasgow Harbour Project

Another of my favourite projects would be the Glasgow Harbour Project that Janice and I worked on together. It was a much larger scale than what I was dealing with at Springside, with it being over a 300-apartment build, and was one of my first experiences of regularly spending time on site in Glasgow.

It was great to be involved with other QSs from Dandara and learn their processes for handling each package. As one of the leading developers in Scotland, I found my time with Dandara extremely valuable and learned a lot from their team.

Vista Apartments

View the project

Vista Apartments in Largs was my first experience of a site with Quantum, travelling with Kenny and getting involved in the monthly meetings with the design team and site manager.

A lot of my early Quantum time was dealing with payments and completing take-offs for this project, so it’s great to see it continuing to develop.

Rowarden

View the project

Rowarden in Arran is one of the current projects I’m working on with Janice. I’ve got a particular interest in this project due to its island location, as this was the topic I discussed in my dissertation.

Again, I’ve been involved with this project since it began as just two fields in the concept stage. This started off as monthly meetings, but with things now ramping up on site in 2024, this has moved to bi-weekly meetings on site. In this project, we’ve had to navigate some issues following ferry cancellations, so it’s always keeping us on our toes.

Kings Arms Ballantrae

I’m looking forward to the Kings Arms internal fit-out and external restoration. Working with top architects on a good community project, this will be one of the first two projects that I’ll be taking the lead on.

I’m sure there will be obstacles throughout the project, but I’m excited for it to begin. This will allow me to adopt my own project-specific system for handling the projects and how they cross over in construction.

The Meadows

A final project that I’ve enjoyed working on would be the Meadows project in Edinburgh, assisting Gregor. This was a multi-million-pound project, and I was doing take-offs for some aspects of the project at the time, so it was good to see it in person a couple of times to witness the progress first-hand. It was also insightful getting to sit in on some of the meetings that Gregor had with the site managers and discover how any issues or roadblocks were resolved.

Again, this was quite early on in my Quantum life – I went to uni in Edinburgh for most of my degree, so it was good to be back in a place that I’m familiar with.