Property Valuer CV Examples & Writing Guide

Two pages at most, written for a valuation director at a surveying firm or a lender's panel manager. The name and firms are invented. The volumes, turnaround times and revision rates are numbers you already have in your own log and your reporting platform.

Valuation in the UK is regulated through RICS. Members who provide written valuations under the Red Book have to be RICS Registered Valuers, and lenders and panel managers expect chartered or associate status. Every reader knows the ladder, so state where you are on it and skip the explanation.

• Graduate or trainee surveyor: working towards the APC under a supervisor and recording structured training. Write the months of training completed and the property types.
• AssocRICS: associate membership through an experience-based assessment, a common route for residential surveyors without an accredited degree. Write the year.
• MRICS: chartered membership through the APC. Most lenders and panel managers expect this level for residential valuation work.
• RICS Registered Valuer: the valuer registration scheme RICS members need to provide Red Book valuations. Say so plainly, because lenders and panel managers screen for it first.
• APC routes, minimum training periods and assessment rules are set by RICS and change from time to time. Check the current RICS guidance for your pathway before you claim eligibility for the next level.

Specialist experience sits alongside membership, not instead of it. Commercial valuation, Level 3 building surveys and expert witness work carry weight with lenders and commercial clients, and 'in progress' is still worth a line as long as you say so.

• Membership grade and Registered Valuer status, plus which lender panels you are approved on. Panel approvals are genuinely valuable to firms with national clients.
• Property types and geography. A panel manager is filling coverage in specific postcodes for specific lenders, and 'rural properties across three counties' is exactly what they are hunting for.
• Volume and turnaround. Reports per month and days from inspection to delivery. These are the operating numbers of the business.
• Quality signals: revision rate, audit findings, complaints, valuation challenge outcomes, CPD and Red Book currency.
• Whether you take the hard files. Complex instructions, limited comparables, non-standard construction, retentions and expert witness work all raise your fee and your value to a firm.
• Whether you can supervise. A firm that wants to grow needs chartered valuers who can support graduates through the APC and sign off their work.

“Membership level, coverage counties, monthly capacity and revision rate. That is the whole first screen. Someone who tells me they handle rural work with thin comparables and a 3-day turnaround is worth more to me than anyone who writes about attention to detail.”

• Methods of valuation: comparative, investment, residual, profits and depreciated replacement cost; comparable analysis, market conditions adjustments, highest and best use.
• Reports and standards: mortgage and secured lending valuations, buy-to-let and HMO valuations, Red Book (RICS Valuation – Global Standards) compliance with current CPD, the RICS Home Survey Standard, RICS property measurement standards.
• Software: lender and panel manager reporting platforms, Argus Enterprise for commercial cash flows, spreadsheets for comparable schedules, mobile sketching and inspection apps.
• Data sources: HM Land Registry, sold-price and portal data, the EPC register, Ordnance Survey mapping, BCIS rebuild costs, flood risk maps, rental evidence and commercial data services.
• Property types you can defend in an interview: houses, flats, small multi-lets and HMOs, non-standard construction, rural properties with land, development land, and any commercial category you have actually valued.
• Client-facing skills: valuation challenge responses, audit comments, expert witness work, and clear explanation of a figure to a homeowner who is unhappy with it.

The hard part of this career is not the final assessment, it is finding a firm that will support your APC. Your CV is really an application to be trained, so write it for a busy valuer who is deciding whether you would be more help than work.

1. 1State your degree and APC status plainly at the top: RICS-accredited degree or not, months of structured training, inspections completed, property types.
2. 2List the training you have finished, including RICS ethics, with the provider and year.
3. 3Show you can do the parts that save a supervisor time: measuring and sketching to RICS standards, photography, Land Registry and planning research, building comparable schedules.
4. 4Bring related experience forward. Estate agency, conveyancing, mortgage processing, construction, land surveying and council tax or rating work all read well here.
5. 5Say you have a full driving licence, your own car and the flexibility to inspect during working hours, because the work is field work.
6. 6Check the current APC requirements with RICS before you apply, since pathways, training periods and assessment rules change.

• Two pages is standard in the UK and one is fine for graduates. Use the second page for commercial, expert witness or specialist work.
• Single column PDF, plain headings. No photo and no date of birth on a UK CV.
• In the UK, search and apply under 'valuer', 'valuation surveyor', 'residential surveyor' and 'chartered surveyor'. In the US the same job is a real estate appraiser with a state licence, so mention that term once if that is where you trained.
• If you trained abroad, say what your qualification is and where, then state your RICS status honestly, including 'APC in progress'. Nobody will hold the transition against you, but an unclear status ends applications.
• Mirror the advert's words for the applicant tracking system: Red Book, RICS Registered Valuer, MRICS, secured lending, mortgage valuation, buy-to-let, panel, Home Survey, retention, audit.
• List your coverage area by county or postcode area, not just by town. Panel managers allocate work by postcode.