Building safety isn’t just regulation – here are 7 exciting careers to consider
Posted on: 6 January, 2025
If you think a career in building safety is just about regulation and compliance, think again. Here are several opportunities in this exciting and growing area.
The last few years have been a period of unprecedented change for the built environment. In the wake of the Grenfell Tower Fire of 2017, the introduction of the Building Safety Act and the escalation of building control regulations, the sector as a whole is under greater pressure than ever before to place safety at the heart of its operations.
Yet at the same time, industries like construction are in a battle for talent. 41% of the construction workforce is expected to retire by 2031, exasperating a sizeable shortage of knowledge on building safety that is already causing the sector trouble.
For individuals with an interest in safety and creating spaces where people can thrive, this demand presents an opportunity to launch, develop or even change careers into an exciting, growing space full of demand.
7 key building safety roles in the built environment
If you’re considering a career in building safety, here are several career paths you could pursue:
1. Building control
Building control is focused on ensuring projects conform to building regulations on matters like safety, accessibility and safety. While it’s a practice that has been around for hundreds of years, Grenfell thrust it into the limelight as a core discipline our sector desperately needs more of.
Among other considerations, building control professionals play a pivotal role in ensuring safety is incorporated throughout the building lifecycle. They’re key drivers of safety and compliance in the built environment, and a career in this area is a powerful opportunity to demand greater accountability, bring about change and prevent disasters like Grenfell from happening again.
2. Fire safety surveying
One of the key takeaways from Grenfell and other recent disasters is the need for greater fire safety knowledge and expertise throughout the construction process. To address this and help the sector with increasing legislation, the role of the fire safety surveyor has been popularised.
This is another profession where individuals can make a genuine difference to people’s lives. The scale of the cladding crisis and the challenge of getting our sector in line with fire safety standards is enormous, meaning there is no shortage of demand, work and opportunity in this area.
3. Building surveying
Building surveying is one of the most diverse and varied roles in the built environment. This type of surveying provides expert advice on a wide range of buildings, from retrofits and heritage sites to enormous, multi-million-pound complexes and structures.
The expertise and knowledge of building surveyors make them among the most valued professions in the sector, with safety among their key focuses.
As Annabel Huffer, Senior Building Surveyor at Knight Frank and former UCEM apprentice, notes:
“What stood out to me about building surveying was the diverse range of projects you can work on. Depending on where you choose to work, you can be in the consultancy side, where the variety is huge, or the client side, where you’re working more closely with specific buildings and portfolios. You can also specialise in areas such as education, sustainability or heritage… you can become niche and do what really interests you. There’s so much freedom.”
4. Urban planning
On the face of it, urban planning may not seem like a discipline particularly concerned with safety. After all, while many of the other professions on this list focus on issues around specific buildings and processes, urban planners are predominantly concerned with the planning phase – before any construction work has actually been done.
Yet the impact of planning is so widely felt and far-reaching that it plays a pivotal role in the safety of individuals and communities. As Leslie Kern, author of Feminist City, notes:
“There is a predominantly male perspective on how the city works or should work. Even if it’s unconscious or unintentional, the result is that cities have been set up to serve men’s roles and women’s lives and experiences have been an afterthought at best.”
Beyond individual buildings, the design of our public spaces and cityscapes can go a long way to keeping residents safe, yet more needs to be done. This is perhaps why, according to a survey of 800 women, 62% fear using public spaces. Urban planners, then, have a key role to play in the safety of the built environment.
Learn more: Sexism and the city: are buildings and cities sexist?
5. Site management
Site managers are responsible for the day-to-day operations and management of construction sites – an area where safety is paramount. Accidents and injuries are common in the industry, thanks to the use of heavy equipment and the need to work at height, with fatal injuries increasing by 50% between 2022 and 2023.
Along with taking ownership of the construction process and the delivery of a project to the expectations of stakeholders, site managers regularly perform safety inspections and risk assessments to ensure the conditions of the construction site are safe for everyone involved.
6. SHEQ
Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (otherwise known as SHEQ) specialists work across the built environment in a variety of different disciplines. Like building control, SHEQ covers many aspects of the built environment, from design all the way through to construction and operation. However, safety is undoubtedly a key priority.
As a SHEQ professional, assessing working conditions, carrying out risk assessments, coaching staff on safety regulations and embedding these into an organisation’s culture will be part of your role. If safety is something that interests you, there are few roles where you can have such an impact.
7. Architectural design technology
Another key development from the Grenfell Tower Fire and the Building Safety Act is the added responsibility of the architectural profession to ensure the safety of buildings. To some degree, this has been formalised by the introduction of the Principal Designer, as Marc Fleming, Programme Leader for UCEM’s BSc (Hons) Architectural Design Technology, notes:
“Now that the principal designer competency framework is established from PAS 8671, it’s evident that chartered architectural technologists can play a significant role in supporting the objectives of it.”
Architectural technology is often seen as the bridge between the architect’s vision and the practical and sustainable reality of a completed construction project. As such, technicians in this area use innovative technologies like building information modelling (BIM) and digital twins to run simulations and optimise building designs for factors like energy efficiency accessibility and, of course, safety.
Final thoughts
The built environment is a sector full of opportunities. From sustainability and design to science, accessibility and diversity, there’s an area where your interests and passions can intersect with your day-to-day role.
To learn more about the many different career pathways the built environment can offer, visit our careers profiles.
