BSc (Hons) - Building Surveying including Foundation Year

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UCAS Code

K23F

Start Date

September 2027

Location

Pontypridd

Campus Code

UCAS Points

UCAS Code

K23F

Start Date

September 2026

Location

Pontypridd

Campus Code

UCAS Points

Fees

Home students: £9,790*
International students: £17,200*

Course Overview

Building Surveyors manage the evolving Built Environment and their role is crucial as urban space demands increase. This course teaches you about building control, conservation, defects, planning, and construction, which is key knowledge in this sector.

The Building Surveying degree at the University of South Wales is ideally suited for individuals aspiring to become professional building surveyors. This program is tailored for students with a strong interest in construction, property, and a desire to gain the skills and knowledge required for a career in building surveying.

Accreditations

Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)

Why study this course?

Full Time or Part Time Delivery

Students can complete their studies full-time or part-time whilst gaining valuable industry experience

Focus on Employability

We engage Industry as a key stakeholder in developing our course material, inviting them in to deliver industry relevant guest lectures

Visit Industry

You will get chance to engage with industry by visiting local companies, allowing you to see how everything you have learned in the classroom plays out in the workplace environment

Desirable Skills Which Address Industry Shortages

You will develop skills in communication, problem solving, IT digital skills, and collaboration

Professionally Accredited

The Building Surveying course is accredited by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)

What you'll study

In your Foundation Year, you’ll explore real-world challenges, build practical, academic, and teamwork skills, and develop curiosity, confidence, and problem-solving abilities to prepare for future study and impact.

This module helps you develop academic, personal and professional skills for university study. You’ll reflect on your progress, build confidence, and create an evidence-based portfolio to support your future learning.

Explore real-world engineering challenges as you develop your theoretical knowledge, including core mathematical and scientific principles. Learn key skills through tutorials and seminars before applying them in immersive laboratories and workshops.

Step into the built environment and explore roles from surveying to construction management. You’ll discover how sustainability and smart tech shape decisions, while building the skills and confidence for your degree.

You’ll work in teams with other Foundation Year students to tackle real-world challenges, developing solutions through research, curiosity, collaboration, and responsible problem-solving while building skills that will support your future studies.

We regularly review our courses to keep pace with changing skills and employer needs. If a review leads to significant changes, we’ll contact you to explain what’s changing for the coming year.

For details of the modules you will study after successful completion of the Foundation Year, please see the main course page.

Teaching and Assessment

You’ll learn by doing, through real-world activities that help you understand how learning works at university. You’ll be encouraged to ask questions, explore new ideas and work with others, as well as independently.

Teaching builds confidence, critical thinking and reflection, supported by digital tools. Regular feedback helps you track progress, plan next steps and build resilience and a strong sense of belonging as you prepare for higher-level study.

You’ll be assessed in different ways, including short tasks, coursework, presentations, and group work. Early assessments are designed to support your learning and help you understand what is expected at university. Most assessments are coursework-based and help you develop key skills such as research, academic writing, teamwork, and communication. You’ll also reflect on your progress and use university systems and digital tools. Clear, timely feedback will help you understand how to improve and support your next steps.

We recommend you spend a year working in the construction industry as part of your project management degree. During this sandwich year, you’ll get hands-on experience that will make you a more attractive candidate to employers and will inform your studies in your final year.

Our dedicated careers placement officer can assist you in finding placements during the holidays.

For added experience, you’ll use industry-standard facilities on campus. These include computing laboratories with engineering software such as Revit, ArchiCAD, AutoCAD, Autodesk QTO, CostX, Synchro, and Navisworks.

You will also be introduced to the latest digital technologies such as drones, thermal imaging, Virtual and Augmented Reality.

From September 2026, our Computing, Engineering, Technology and Built Environment courses will move into their brand-new home: the Calon building.

This £60m investment will feature more than 40 new innovative teaching, learning and research spaces, including electronics and hydraulics labs, a flight simulator, a robotics lab, clean and industrial research spaces, collaborative teaching spaces, as well as virtual reality capability, and a range of exhibition spaces.

Calon will give you access to the technology, facilities and opportunities needed to shape the future.

Course Leader

Nicholas Grant Avon

Meet Grant Avon, a CIOB Chartered Member and Course Leader for BSc (Hons) Building Surveying. He has a diverse background in construction, spanning across the trades as an electrician and builder before progressing into building surveying and consultancy. Since joining the University of South Wales, he has combined industry and academic expertise to deliver practice-focused teaching. His experiences bring both industry insight, and sustainability and conservation research, into the classroom to help students engage with contemporary built environment challenges. For more information, contact Grant via email.

Career Prospects

Building Surveying offers excellent career opportunities in the UK and internationally. As a graduate, you’ll have the skills and confidence to begin a career as a Building Surveyor and work towards corporate membership of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Your future career

Graduates can progress into roles across private practice, property and construction companies, development organisations, and central or local government, or choose to become self-employed. Supported by strong industrial and commercial links and over 40 years of experience developing industry-ready professionals, the course prepares you with the knowledge and skills employers value across the built environment sector. Potential career paths include:

Construction Project Manager
Quantity Surveyor
Building Surveyor
Construction Estimator
Site Supervisor

98% of graduates are in employment and/or further study 15 months after graduation.

Graduate Outcomes Survey 2022/23

Salary Expectations

A Building Surveying degree can open opportunities across Built Environment and the wider sector. Built Environment careers offer strong earning potential:

Median wage
UK: £41.9k per annum
Wales: £38.2k per annum

Total jobs in 2025
UK: 1.09m
Wales: 38,215

Source: Lightcast Labour Market Data 2026

Get a head-start on your chartered status and attract a higher salary, with a RICS accreditation.

Learn more about RICS accreditation

Industry Partners

Our strong industrial and commercial links mean we know what employers want from you when you graduate. We have a proud history of developing industry-ready graduates for over four decades.

Entry Requirements

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

How to apply Contextual admissions policy Ask us a question

48 UCAS points or above

Typical qualification requirements

A Level:
DD

Welsh BACC:
N/A

BTEC:
BTEC Extended Diploma Pass Pass Pass or BTEC Diploma Pass Pass

Access to HE:
Pass Access to HE Diploma with a minimum of 48 UCAS Tariff points

T Level:
Pass (D or E)

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.

International students Pre-Sessional English

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 4 overall and a minimum of 4 in each component or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

Fees and Funding

UK Full-Time Fee £ 9,790

per year

Fees and funding Scholarships and bursaries Cost of living support

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy. We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.

International Full-Time Fee £ 17,200

per year

Fees and funding Scholarships and bursaries Cost of living support

Ranked in the Top 50 UK universities in the Guardian University Guide 2026.

Three students studying in a pod in the library at Cardiff campus

Top in Wales for new business startups for the 6th consecutive year, and 7th in the UK. (HEBCIS)

Explore our facilities

Calon

Get hands-on with industry-standard equipment in the new £60m Calon building. From robotics and virtual reality to specialist engineering labs and a flight simulator, you'll learn using the technology shaping tomorrow's world.

Learn more

How to apply

All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS

You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time).

Building Surveying including Foundation Year
- Full-time, 4 years
- September
- Pontypridd
Apply direct

Building Surveying including Foundation Year
- Full-time, 4 years
- September
- Pontypridd
Apply direct

If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.

Applicants accepted through advanced entry may study a different combination of modules to those advertised, as they will be joining a course already in progress. You will be contacted and advised about these modules once your application has been processed and an offer made.

International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.

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Building Surveying including Foundation Year