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You’ll learn the techniques required to produce the reliable spatial data on which all construction tasks depend.

You won’t just be measuring. You’ll be analysing data, presenting it and managing it. And of course re-measuring… just to be sure.

The course involves a range of ways to map geographical features. You’ll learn about land surveying and geodesy, which involves taking into account the earth’s curvature when you are measuring large areas.

Other fields of study will involve photogrammetry – the science of making measurements from photographs – laser scanning, remote sensing, and hydrographic surveying, typically investigating the seabed.

We’ll also introduce you to cadastral surveying, which combines technical and legal knowledge to establish boundaries.

The modules you’ll take include land and construction surveying, legal and regulatory framework, computer programming, data acquisition and 3D modelling, engineering surveying and sea surveying.

All match the required standards of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors (ICES).

With more than 60 years' experience, surveying is one of the longest established areas of teaching within the University of East London.

Most of our students on this course work part-time in the profession, including during the summer break, while they’re studying. This is usually on a paid basis.

Throughout your studies you’ll undertake a number of small projects, usually based on practical work. Your final year will include a project involving independent research and study of a technical subject.

This project will be supervised by a member of staff with an interest in the field and will normally include some laboratory work or the analysis of a specific surveying problem. Throughout, you’ll be working with the very latest surveying equipment and software.

Each term, we’re visited by around 20 local industry professionals – known as the Industrial Advisory Board (IAB) – to update us on changing requirements for graduates. They also supervise final-year projects, when they’ll be looking out for likely candidates to recruit for jobs.

This course also has regular contact with Fugro UK, the offshore surveying and exploration company, Plowman Craven, one of the UK’s biggest land surveyors, and other major construction companies such as Skanska and Costain.

This course has a superb record in getting graduates into employment.
Likely UK destinations include the Highways Agency, Network Rail, Thames Water and local authorities.

The emphasis placed internationally on precision measurement of boundaries in property sales means surveyors are hugely valued worldwide.
Many overseas students who graduate from this course return home to work in their government land survey departments.

Other graduates have moved into UK companies specialising in surveying land for new houses or roads.

The course is also a route into forensic surveying, which establishes precise data for use in court cases. You might be involved in checking measurements following a serious road accident, or attending a serious crime scene, such as the aftermath of bomb explosion.

Your knowledge of hydrographic surveying will equip you for worldwide employment opportunities in the fields of offshore gas and oil exploration.
These skills are also required for tasks such as searching for aircraft which have disappeared over the ocean. The search in the Pacific for a missing Malaysian Airlines plane in 2014 involved hydrographic surveyors.

Recent UEL graduates in Surveying and Mapping Sciences have gone on to land jobs with FUGRO, Plowman Craven, Ordnance Survey, Scopus, Survey Solutions and Crossrail.