If experience stops with you, what is it worth?

Having recently been confirmed as a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS), Head of Development Consultancy John Sayer reflects on the responsibility that comes with experience and the role organisations and individuals can play in developing the professionals of the future. 

Being confirmed as a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has given me an opportunity to reflect on what professional development has meant over the course of my own career. 

I became chartered in 2004 and, like many people earlier in their careers, I probably thought about development primarily in terms of becoming better at my job, gaining experience and progressing through an organisation. Those things remain important, but more than 20 years later my view of professional development is much broader and it’s also about the contribution you make as a result. 

As professionals, particularly those working across property, infrastructure and regeneration, our work rarely exists in isolation. Decisions affect investment, communities, businesses, landowners and the delivery of projects intended to create wider public benefit. Technical knowledge is essential, but so are judgement, integrity and an understanding of the responsibility that comes with giving professional advice. 

Developing those qualities comes with time and exposure to different situations, learning from people around you and sometimes being trusted with responsibilities before you feel entirely comfortable taking them on. It also relies on us to keep testing what we know rather than assuming that reaching a particular level of seniority means the learning has finished. 

Some of the experiences that have contributed most to my own development have actually happened outside my day job. 

I have been involved with the Compulsory Purchase Association (CPA) since 2007, including the Young CPA (now CPA Future) and ultimately serving as Chair in 2024–25. I have taught and spoken at professional training courses and conferences for many years, supported the development of practitioners preparing for their own RICS assessments and more recently undertaken work as an Evaluative Mediator and Independent Determiner. 

Each of those activities requires something slightly different from advising a client or leading a project. Teaching forces you to explain complex issues clearly and professional body involvement exposes you to different views and experiences across the industry. Dispute resolution requires independence and careful judgement. Mentoring or supporting someone earlier in their career makes you reconsider things that experience has made instinctive. 

In my experience, knowledge shared outside an organisation also brings knowledge back into it. You return with different perspectives, stronger professional networks and a better understanding of the issues shaping your profession. That ultimately improves the quality of the advice you provide and the way you lead others. 

I think organisations therefore have an important role in creating the conditions for professional development to extend beyond formal training courses or the next promotion. 

At Ardent, one of the things I have valued is the opportunity to help create some of those conditions. 

Our Shadow Board was established to give colleagues earlier in their careers a structured route into conversations taking place at the highest levels of the business. As its Chair, I have seen the value of giving people genuine responsibility and a platform from which they can challenge established thinking. It is not development through observation; people are contributing to discussions about culture, professional development and the future direction of the organisation. 

The same principle sits behind the Ardent Academy, which supports colleagues working towards the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence. The technical requirements of becoming chartered are important, but the bigger objective is to develop confident professionals who understand both their discipline and the standards expected of them. 

There is also a responsibility on those of us who have benefited from those opportunities ourselves. 

Every profession depends on experienced people being willing to pass knowledge on, open doors and create opportunities for the people coming behind them. That might involve formal mentoring or training, but actually, it’s the simpler things that build up over time; involving somebody in a difficult conversation, asking for their opinion, allowing them to lead a piece of work or taking the time to explain the judgement behind a decision rather than simply providing the answer. 

The aim should not be to create another generation of professionals who think exactly as we do. Good development should give people the confidence, knowledge and judgement to form their own views and, where appropriate, challenge ours. 

In areas such as compulsory purchase and regeneration, where professional advice is frequently scrutinised and where competing interests have to be balanced carefully, this is so crucial. Strong professions depend on people who understand that responsibility and are prepared to exercise independent judgement. 

Becoming FRICS is something I am very proud of, but I do not see Fellowship as the end point of professional development, I see it as a reminder of the responsibility that comes with experience. 

The longer we spend in our professions, the more our contribution should extend beyond the projects immediately in front of us. We should be helping to improve standards, sharing what we have learned, supporting the development of others and contributing to the wider debates that shape our industries. 

For employers, developing talent cannot simply mean preparing people for their next role within the organisation. We should be helping them become professionals who can make a meaningful contribution wherever their careers ultimately take them. 

If we do that well, the benefit extends well beyond any single business. We strengthen the profession, improve the quality of advice available to clients and decision-makers and, ultimately, develop people who are better equipped to contribute to the places, projects and communities our work exists to serve.