S3: Ep 3: Sam Blackham, Chartered Surveyor, Chartered Construction Manager, Associate Director, Gardiner & Theobald LLP

"It's point go to handing over the keys at the end."

Sam appoints the team,  selects designs, manages the costs, makes sure the numbers add up and helps ensure the site developer is going to make a profit from building a new development. In other words, when it comes to construction and builds, Sam is a "jack of all trades," pulling together a diverse group of stakeholders to bring something new to the London UK scene. 

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Thank you Jann Danyluk, Career Resilience.

Transcript

 | 00:12 | I'm so excited to welcome you to season three of Career Resilience. My name is Jan Danyluk, senior human resources consultant at Ford Keast, a progressive accounting firm in London, Ontario, Canada. Each week I get to talk with people about their career path and their career journey.
 | 00:30 | And maybe we can all learn from each other how to be a little bit more resilient in the challenging world of work. Please check out my website, careerresilience.com, where you'll find season one and season two. And now season three. Welcome. Love what you do and do what you love. The best career advice I've received, all the fun. Those opportunities will just organically present themselves, establish those connections and maintain those connections.
 | 01:01 | Acceptance just means accepting what is things. We should just put ourselves in a box. At the end of the day, it was always me that I said, I'm not doing good enough right now. I want it to always be movie night on Friday night. My guest today is Sam Blackham. Sam. Welcome to career resilience. Thank you. Nice to you. It's great to have you here.
 | 01:28 | And we're going to talk about your career and I just want to read off what I think you do and maybe you can tell me if that is what you do. So you are a chartered surveyor and we're going to get into what a chartered surveyor does. And you tend to do project management on building projects is my understanding of your role. So we're going to get a little bit deeper into that because I want to understand it, especially as you're located and you work in London, England, correct?
 | 02:00 | Correct. Yeah, that's correct. And just for clarity, I work in London, Ontario, Canada, which is why I don't have an accent. But you do have an accent. Yeah, depending on which side of the pond you're on. So are you from London, Sale? I'm not. I'm from Birmingham, which is about 2 hours north of London from the UK.
 | 02:28 | Okay. And Birmingham, that is famous for its house. For its what? Well, what do you think it's famous for? Not many things, to be honest. Cadbury Chocolate maybe is the one thing I know you're familiar with. Yes, I am. Capricocular and then Jacob Land Rover is the other thing that's from Birmingham and made that.
 | 03:00 | But yeah, it's not quite as famous as London. But Birmingham, I have heard, has as many canals as Venice. Yeah, they'll cling on to that. It does have a lot of canals. So it was a big industrial city in the Industrial Revolution and factories. So they built lots of canals.
 | 03:26 | But it is flat bag in the middle of the UK, so there's no coast, so they built lots of canals to get things in and out. Okay. That's why. And to your point, you did mention Cadbury World, and I do love Cadbury World because they keep a fair amount of free chocolate when you wander around and see it's fantastic. I hire anybody to go to Cadbury World.
 | 03:55 | So can you tell me to start off just so we get a sense of you, what is an interesting or random fact about you, whether it's interesting or not? I put this as my opener for my intro at work as an interesting fact, but I've lived in Thailand, France, Italy and also Birmingham, which I think was probably the highlight for everyone.
 | 04:25 | So that was my interesting fact, that I lived in those four places. Did you live in those places for a period of time? Yes. So a couple of months in each of the foreign countries and then 18 years in Birmingham. So a bit longer in Birmingham. Yeah. And of the places you've lived, exclusive of Birmingham, but inclusive, what has been your favorite place?
 | 04:57 | I think probably London does just get it. I do love London. I think London is one of the best cities in the world. I think it's an amazing place and I think anyone that's lived there, if you love it, you get drawn back to the buzz of it.
 | 05:16 | But I do think living I lived in the French Alps for summer and worked out there, and that was amazing because I think it's just got so much going for it in terms of scenery and things you can do outdoors, and it's a beautiful place, so that's probably a close second. If you could combine the two, you'd have the perfect place because we talk about careers on this podcast.
 | 05:46 | Tell me, you're a chartered surveyor, so what does that mean that you do for a living? Yeah, no one knows, which is always a bit fun to just be like a doctor or lawyer, where people just know what you do. So basically, it's a really broad career, so anything to do with property and land can be a charter to there. But me, particularly, I do property development, essentially, so I'm a charter project manager, so I basically make projects happen.
 | 06:18 | So if you see big developments in big cities, there'll be a charter project manager that oversees it. And that is from literally a point go to handing over the keys at the end. So you would get involved in appointing the teams, appointing architects, picking designs, managing the costs, making sure the numbers add up, making sure the developers going to make profit, managing the building work on site, managing planning permission, all of those things you'll get involved in and overseas.
 | 06:53 | So it's quite a varied role and you have to be a bit of a jack of all trades, I guess. Sounds like it. So, Sam, do you not have to bring a lot of people together? Yeah, so that's a big part of, I think, similar to your role and HR and those sort of roles. You have to be a bit of a people person, I guess. You have to be able to what I really like about it is you have to take because construction sites always chaos, no matter how well they run all these different little firms and businesses and people.
 | 07:28 | And you have to take that chaos, manage it, and then present that to the client in a way that they'll understand and they'll appreciate and they'll understand the risks. They'll understand risk, their budget, risk, their timeline, risks to their end user. And you have to be able to go on to building site and have a heated conversation with a builder and then also go into a boardroom and say, well, you're spending £100 million on this building, and it may cost you an extra £50 million.
 | 08:00 | Because of these reasons you have to be able to step into both worlds that are very different. So I think that's really interesting. What is the most stressful aspect of your role? I think dealing with the construction industry.
 | 08:21 | So there's big construction companies which are called main contractors which basically you miss the client, Mrs client, your property developer, you appoint them and they take on all the risk and typically on these big contracts and get a percentage profit for that. But what a lot of people don't realize is they don't do any of the work themselves, they will just farm it out a series of smaller companies.
 | 08:48 | So you could have tier one, tier two, tier three, who are all companies that sit below them. And you get to the base of that and it's quite often little family run businesses who will do brick laying or steel or whatever it is. And I think there is a real challenge in managing those people because they often aren't as invested in the project. They get a flat fee for what they do, so you have to manage them.
 | 09:19 | And they're sort of often challenging business. So for example, I've had projects in the last year where they've gone bankrupt because of the pandemic and then that has a knock on effect on the whole project. So I think managing that supply chain is really difficult and it's something people aren't, unless you work in the industry, just aren't aware of. Just to back up for a second, what attracted you to going in this career direction?
 | 09:52 | I asked myself that sometimes. So I did a random degree at Uni and my intention was always to do law school after university. So I in halfway through my degree got place and that was kind of my plan. And then I ended up going to a career stay around me at the university and there's a lady there that worked for my company.
 | 10:17 | My grand scheme at the end and I've always been interested in property and buildings and I think it's something that I've always watched grand Designs and things like that. So got chatting with her and she was really passionate about it and it's a big massive company so it was quite appealing in that sense and shoved me some work experience. So I did two weeks work experience in my second year of union in the office in London and really enjoyed it.
 | 10:50 | So it was a company called Arcades, which is like a big multinational engineering company. I think there's like 28,000 people in it. It's a really big listed company and I really enjoyed it. They had a free bar in the office, which was part of the sales pitch, to be honest. I then applied for the grad scheme and did all the assessment days, all that sort of thing.
 | 11:18 | And my third year, I think halfway through my third year, they offer me a grad scheme and like a sponsorship for my masters so I could do a course in that area. So it was a bit too good to turn down, to be honest. I think, having enjoyed it. And the thought of getting lots of debt to law school without a job guaranteed at the end of it was a bit off putting. So, yeah, and haven't looked back, really.
 | 11:48 | I don't know that we actually have grad schemes in Canada. Can you just give me a thumbnail sketch of what a Grad scheme is? So it's a scheme that bigger companies normally do for graduates. So it normally involves taking people that have no work experience from the university and there's often some training involved. So they tend to be for law firms.
 | 12:14 | Charles accountants, actories, things like that, where you go in and perhaps have a period of time where you're under some sort of training program. But it's designed specifically for people coming out of university. So a lot of the universities in the UK have career days where you'll have the companies in the sales pitch, basically.
 | 12:43 | Okay, so what we have here is coop, so that would be called cooperative education here. So it sounds similar thing. Can you tell me about a project that you worked on that you're specifically really proud of? Yeah, there's been lots. I think my projects that I've done with Grevenor have been really cool.
 | 13:07 | So I've spent a year and squandered into a client, which is the Duke of Westminster's property business, and they have a lot of landmark properties in London. So I done three or four projects with them now, which is really cool. And a lot of them are listed buildings, conservation areas, and they will build projects that landmarks in that area.
 | 13:38 | So one I'm just finishing at the moment is three buildings built, the 18 hundreds, and they were literally built out of almost rubble. So they're really complicated buildings. Two were built together. One was originally built by a pharmacist and they're all in sort of prime Mayfair locations and they've had grand facades put on them.
 | 14:06 | And we did a whole cut and carved project where we basically just kept the facade. Everything inside was pulled down, did a basement dig out and then it's going to be a restaurant and a pub on the ground floor and then there's like a cowork or we work type office above and it's not the biggest project I've done by far, but it's probably been the most complicated because we procured the project.
 | 14:35 | So we signed the contract with a contractor just before the Pandemic. So we then had to navigate all the lockdowns. We had several site managers leave and quit, so they will work for the subcontractors. We've had real high churn of staff, we've had subcontractor go bust, we've had lots of delays associated with COVID the contractor because of the way the contracts are let.
 | 15:08 | It's a fixed price contract. So just before the Pandemic they said, we will do it for X number of million, and they've had to stick to that. And obviously we've had crazy inflation in everything, but particularly in the construction market. So the contractor is losing a lot of money and we have to navigate that with them.
 | 15:29 | So it's been a really, really challenging project, but we're coming at the end of it and we will be completing middle of November, so it's kind of been a big milestone for the people involved. But, yeah, I think that would be a really cool project to go over the line and it's just opposite selfridges. So in that you'll have probably been there, Jam, you'll probably walk past it. Yeah.
 | 15:58 | How do people react when you say you work for the Duke of Westminster? I think people either don't know who he is or I think because there's quite a lot of press when he got the title, because he was really young, his dad died quite young and overnight became one of the wealthiest people in the world.
 | 16:29 | So I think there's a lot of people that understandably, think that that's wrong and perhaps would rather that land was split up and it wasn't all in his hands. But I think, on the other hand, anyone that's come across Grover knows that they have a lot of charities, they do a lot of good in the community.
 | 16:55 | And anyone that understands or perhaps works in the property industry, if you're an architect or someone like that, knows that they have a big role in conservation as well in that area. So you walk around West London and a lot of that area has been maintained that way because of the Grovener State and their trust. So a bit of a mixed bag, I guess, which is probably true of most people in the public eye, I suppose.
 | 17:26 | Yes. I would say one of the things that you mentioned is that you can't dig a hole in London without coming across a German bomb or a rolling. Yeah, I mean, really, when you think of London, it's trying to maintain the London that people imagine and the historic and so on. That is a very big responsibility to carry.
 | 17:57 | We have a listing process, like a planning process in the UK, which has different ratings depending on how special the building is, basically. But a lot of the grove and the buildings are great to star listed, which is like about you almost dealing with a national monument rather than a building. That's what makes London London. Right. What is the definition of a sustainable skyline? What does that mean?
 | 18:26 | There's a massive push in property and construction to become more sustainable because it's a ridiculous amount of carbon that's generated by building, using and then demolishing buildings. And to be honest, there's a lot of green washing going on, if that's the term used in Canada. But there's a lot of businesses and developers claiming to be very sustainable and green, when in reality, that's probably not the case.
 | 19:00 | Lots of plants being put on the outside of buildings, but they're made from concrete and steel. But I think it's a massive area. And actually, the RHS, who are the body that regulates fairs, and they become a charter fair, you have to pass their exams, they have a big push to make charter spares be like at the forefront of that.
 | 19:28 | And you can do all these different courses to become a specialist in it. And there's all these different accreditations for things like Brian and Passive House, which are basically trying to make the sort of Tesla of buildings, if you can imagine that's the future of what that looks like, and making it more sustainable. So, Sam, do you, in your world, think much about global warming?
 | 19:57 | Does that cross your mind when you're working on projects? Is that an aspect of it? Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of developers and clients. Now, that's a big focus, and I think for Grovener, because, to be blunt about it, they have the resources to be thinking about it. They're a bit less commercial than a normal house builder, and they've got some great assets, which means that they take a really and because of the history of it, they take a really long term view.
 | 20:28 | They will buy sites thinking, we can develop it in 100 years, whereas very few businesses can take that sort of approach. So they have a big push for sustainability, making their buildings carbon neutral, energy efficient, really well insulated. So, yeah, there's a big push for that. And then there's also the factor of consumer demand.
 | 20:55 | So in London, a lot of buildings still don't have air conditioning, which is probably mental for people in North America to think about, but we just not built for any sort of heat and it's becoming a lot more common. So retrofitting all of those systems into old buildings is a big thing for grocer. So the building I'm just seeing now, completing now, is got state of the art air conditioning in it because it's going to need it as an office space.
 | 21:30 | So a building that was built in the 18 hundreds has to have all the details built in and it takes a lot of clever design from engineers and the architects to squeeze it all in, basically, yeah. Yes, I've heard that where you live, the goal was to keep heat in. That's just not the way we work over here.
 | 21:58 | And I'm sure that during the heat wave, because London and England and Europe is famous for this heatwave we had this past summer, that people rethink these things that we don't want to keep heat in, we bought it out. Such a difference over the years. Yeah. And even now, everyone you think 50 years ago people would have been satellites with the paper, and now a lot of the offices in London are for traders, people in finance, they'll have three or four screens each, which will generate heat, and all of that is a big change as well.
 | 22:35 | So are you impacted by things like the move to people working from home offices? Is that something that enters your mind? Do you have to pay attention to all that stuff? Yeah, definitely, it's a big thing in the industry and I think it's a big thing for London as well, because people invest insane amounts of money in property in central London because businesses will pay insane amounts of money to rent there, and so it all filters this through.
 | 23:07 | And there was a big concern, I think, particularly during the Pandemic, that investors would pull out of schemes in central London because particularly in the City and Canary Wolf, it's all driven by desk numbers and that culture of getting your train into work and sitting at your desk and getting your train home. So I think that was a big thing for everyone.
 | 23:32 | And I think coming out the back of the pandemic, I think people in London particularly, I think we all live in small flats because it's so expensive. And I think because people probably live in London because they want to go to a bar and after work and the theater and that sort of thing, I think there's been a big shift back to people going in the office at least two or three days a week. So I think that has been a it's been a change, but it's not undermined the value of those buildings.
 | 24:04 | So I think what the market seems to be doing is moving towards smaller offices where people come in and perhaps it's really quite boring studies on how many desks different businesses need per head, and that's a big thing for driving these buildings. So a project I finished last year, which just more out of luck than judgment, finished just as we were coming out of the Pandemic, has done really well because it has ten small little offices in it.
 | 24:41 | So all of these businesses that just want a touchdown point in central London for people coming in from Surrey or wherever for a day, two days a week, have a really amazing small office and they don't need as many desks. It's an interesting point because I think there's a lot of research now and a lot of the industry is saying that everyone's office needs to be nicer than the living room.
 | 25:11 | So how do we get people in? You know? Yeah, it definitely does have an impact. Yeah, it's interesting because before the Pandemic I remember we would have various discussions about people working from home and all the working remotely and all the reasons why that would not work.
 | 25:36 | It was rarely about all the reasons it would work, how to make it work, and then the Pandemic came along and we had to make it work and the world changed. So it's really interesting that catastrophic things drive change much more quickly. People in London are digging down under their homes is that right?
 | 26:06 | To create, because they don't appear to be a lot of basements in the architecture there. Yeah, I think it's particularly in West London where the property prices and you have a lot of people that a lot of trophy assets, to be honest. You have people from not so much anymore, but you had a lot of Russian, you had a lot of Middle Eastern money, chinese as well to people buy listed or historic houses that are your classic townhouse that you'd probably see in Knotting Hill or something like that.
 | 26:42 | And then because these people are used to having the house in California and they also want a pool and parking and a gym and there's nowhere to put it, they do basically just prop the whole house up on temporary supports and then slowly dig underneath it to build a basement for these things. So it's been a bit controversial because there was a point where people were building basements bigger than the house above.
 | 27:10 | So there's been a bit of a shift in the planning regulations around that in Westminster, which is the main West London borough, but people are still building pretty big basements for have all their toys in there, like with basketball courts and swimming pools. It's just kind of imagine what that must look like to go down into the ground and have more house down there than you have above.
 | 27:45 | That's very interesting. Yeah. So let's go back to career resilience. So tell me, what is the best career advice that you have received? Oh, good question. I think not having it all figured out in your first few years.
 | 28:05 | I think some of the best happiest people I know have changed roles and careers several times because I think it's very difficult for anyone at 1821 to know this is what I want to do for the next 40 years. No one knows that. So I think just being flexible and not beating yourself up if something doesn't work, if it doesn't work for you, then look at other options and don't be afraid to take a bit of a jump and leap of faith, I guess.
 | 28:40 | Yes, I like that. And the second thing I wanted to ask you is, is there a book that you've read that inspired you or interested you or a podcast you've listened to or even something you've streamed on Netflix or something that sort of thought, well, that's kind of interesting to my guilty pleasure. Is anything like it's kind of related to what I do. But is there anything like home related to Grand Designs?
 | 29:09 | We used to have a series in the UK called Property Ladder, which is a bit of a bout 15 years old, but I used to love this show because it was all about people flipping houses and you'd have people that have never done it before and who are ambitious and doing things completely financed on credit cards and doing stuff themselves and doing around their jobs.
 | 29:36 | But I think it's always quite an inspiring show because I think people are just pushing themselves because they want a bit more and they want to make some money out of shipping houses. So I always really enjoyed that shit. And I think Grand Designs is the other one because I don't know if you get that in Canada, but it's pretty cool because it's basically just about people building their own houses, but they're always a bit like architecturally special, so they'll be really well designed and a bit different to what anyone's done before.
 | 30:18 | Sounds a bit to me like a busman's holiday. Yeah, I guess it's not the only thing I stream. But there is something fascinating about watching those shows and we have a ton of them here as well. And there's something about taking from nothing to something amazing, and especially where you can see the possibilities of it.
 | 30:48 | I watched one where somebody built a home out of basically a rock cave and I thought, isn't that just amazing? Like super this big move that people are taking shipping containers and making them into very interesting looking living area. My friend's brother turned on into a restaurant on a beach. It was quite cool.
 | 31:18 | And finally, what are you most absolutely proud of about the career that you've built to date? I was quite ambitious when I was like 21 and I kind of just moved to London, started a random job that had no experience in work five days a week. And then I did my masters while I was working, like in the evenings, at weekends.
 | 31:44 | And I think looking back, I was quite young to be doing all of that and I think it was quite a lot of work at that age. So I think I'm proud that I just stuck it out and got through it. And I think it's quite tough in your first few years because for most people that paid rubbish money, you're probably living in a house share. That's a bit grim.
 | 32:12 | And I think for me, doing that and studying as well was at times quite tough. So I think having got through that, I'm proud of and it's kind of open doors for me and to get promoted. So I'm glad I did it when I did it, but I wouldn't do it again. That is amazing discipline, especially at those ages where there's so much to distract you.
 | 32:45 | Exactly. Yeah. To be able to focus like that, that's something to be amazingly proud of. And you know what? It has certainly panned out in the career that you've built. I mean, you've done extremely well for at a very young age, so you deserve to be very proud of yourself, Sam, for sure. So those are everything I wanted to ask you. Is there anything you wanted to add?
 | 33:15 | I don't think so. No. Thank you. Thank you for joining me today. I really appreciate it. Thanks, John. To our viewers and listeners, thanks for listening to our eclectic conversation with from across the pond. And it really is interesting to talk with people from around the world and see how we're different and how we're the same. So thanks for joining us.
 | 33:42 | Listen, wherever you get your podcast, watch us on YouTube. And until we meet again, thanks so much.