landsurveying

Land Surveying Jobs – What You Need To Know

A career in land surveying involves mainly analyzing, describing and mapping out geographic plots of the earth. Although it is a very specific discipline, there is scope to specialize in various streams within land surveying. A typical land surveying job is characterized by an optimal mix of on-site surveying work and in-office processing work. Depending on individual interests, one may choose a job with either more of surveying or processing. Local governments, municipalities, private organizations, land developers, private firms and universities are all potential employers for land developers in the prospect.

Careers within land surveying

As mentioned earlier, land surveying does allow for a significant degree of specializing within the field. Some main branches within land surveying that one may choose to specialize in are geodetic surveying, cartography, cadastral surveying, engineering surveying, hydrographic and oceanographic surveying. Geodetic surveying is concerned with providing a holistic conceptualization of the entire globe and development therein of connecting surveying plans. Cartography is a popular branch of surveying where information is produced and processed to help with making of maps of geographic areas. Cadastral surveying jobs are mainly offered by local municipalities as this branch is concerned with town planning and municipal development.

Engineering surveying is another popular subset of land surveying. Here, jobs involve planning and aiding in the construction of components of public (and sometimes private) infrastructure like motorways, roads, bridges, underpasses, subway systems, railways and other similar structures. Hydrographic and oceanographic surveying jobs mainly involve mapping out coasts and shores and using this information for the safety of ships and boats near the coasts. However, there are also jobs that look deeper regions of the ocean bed and ascertain safe regions for ships.

Knowledge of computers

In recent times, computer processing and computer generated imaging techniques have become indispensible tools for land surveyors. It is, therefore, not surprising that most jobs today emphasize the need for an applicant to be adept with the relevant computer software packages. A considerable amount of time in most land surveying jobs involves processing of the collected geographic survey information.

Employment prospects

These seem like promising times for land surveyors. With the tremendous emphasis on global infrastructure development today along with exciting new technology, jobs are beginning to open up in the profession abundantly. In fact, the Bureau for Labor Statistics has predicted a 21 to 35% increase in jobs for surveying technicians and an increase in the tune of 10 to 20% for land surveyors and mapping professionals by the year 2012.

Finding a land surveying job

It is necessary for land surveyors to be licensed in order to find full time employment in as surveyors. After the required licensure and certification have been obtained, information of available jobs can be found on several different resources. Published vacancies may found on various online forums and newspaper classifieds. Unpublished vacancies are expectedly harder to find. There are local land surveyors’ organizations that are present in many states. Membership in one of these organizations is likely to bring unpublished job vacancies to your notice.