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Kellie Hassab: There's never been a better time to be part of the surveying profession. The career opportunities are incredible. It’s been nationally identified that we need more Surveyors, and so it's a great opportunity for anyone to get into the Surveying and Spatial Science profession.

So I was attracted to surveying because of the variety of work. You can work indoors and outdoors, you can travel with your work, communicating, and project managing development. I was also interested in Maths, Geography, and the cool technology that surveying provides.

Luke Skelton: Surveying is the precise measurement of lands. From a 2D perspective, That sort of means, it could deal with land and boundaries, so therefore land ownership. And maybe, from a 3D perspective, it could be the topography of the Earth's surface, whereas Spatial is the use of that surveying information to analyse and model that data.

Vanessa O’Connell: Surveyors conduct a range in a multitude of work. We have a risk assessment schedule that we set up in all of our ports. We conduct hydrographic surveys to determine seabed depths. So, if surveying isn’t done in any of our ports, then it becomes a safety incident. So, we could have navigational safety issues, where a ship may ground, a ship could hit an obstruction, and there could be a hole, or a damage to a vessel.

Luke Skelton: I think surveying is a great professional choice because it gives lots opportunities, both locally, nationally, and internationally. You're able to travel a lot, see large parts of the world, and it pays well. There's a shortage of people in our profession, so there’s, therefore good opportunities. We work alongside other professional consultants like Engineers and Architects, Town Planners. It’s really exciting, I guess, working on projects that transform cities. As an example, I worked on tunnels, apartments, hotels, schools. So, transformative projects that really shape our communities.

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Roshni Sharma: There are so many opportunities for ongoing learning for Surveying and Spatial Information. At the beginning of your career, usually you will do your degree, whether that’s through TAFE or University. As you progress through your career, if you're a Registered Surveyor, you actually have a requirement to complete CPD, Continuing Professional Development. Each year, you have access to so much information. There are events available online, face-to-face, that you can attend, conferences, so many things where you’re able to learn what the latest cutting-edge applications are for technologies, what’s new, what’s about to come out, what people are excited about. What different ways that people are using technology and information. There’s so much available and it's exciting. It’s fun to do.

Vanessa O’Connell: I'd encourage parents who have a child choosing a career in Hydrographic Surveying to consider work experience. Even a day of work experience. I myself only spent one day enjoying work experience when I was in year ten, and that was enough to sell me to choose the career. If you seek out experience and then let your child actually try it out, I think that goes a long way. There’s certainly plenty of jobs out there for kids to enjoy a long and fruitful career.

Luke Skelton: Lot’s of opportunity with the advancement of technology, especially in our space, things like AI really coming to the forefront of our industry at the moment, with scanners, with GPS, with drones. It’s really a transformation of the industry really, from what it was when I started and I think that’s sort of part of the excitement for new people coming into the industry, is that there’s a lot of technology that we can use. So yeah, the future is bright for myself and for the people coming in.

Kellie Hassab: The Surveying and Spatial profession is very important to every aspect of our community. It provides foundational data that helps us establish communities, identifies environmental conservation areas, provides assistance with transport logistics. Every aspect of our community is reliant on the data that the spatial profession and surveying profession captures. There’s vast opportunities. It’s really exciting and dynamic, so it really is a great career to be part of.

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Roshni Sharma: Over the course of my time working in the Surveying and Spatial Information industry, I've done things that when I started, I never would have dreamed would have been possible for someone like me. It just goes to show how open the industry is to opportunities for people of all sorts of diverse backgrounds and identities.

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Leneth Reyes: I stumbled upon surveying by chance. Back in Uni, I was required by my scholarship to take either an Engineering or Science course and surveying sounded like an exciting career, so I went for it.

Caitlin Williams: I had no idea what I wanted to do after school, so I had a passion for Maths and being outside. So, one of our local friends was the head of a surveying firm, and I went there for a week and fell in love with it. So, I've been doing it ever since.

Jan Sialana: So the difference between Surveying and Spatial Information is that Surveying focuses more on the precise gathering of distances, angles, and elevations. Whereas Spatial Information is a little bit more wider, as it takes your surveying data and makes a little bit more dynamic maps and plans out of it for considering your geographic context and analysis.

Caitlin Williams: So a task that we do on a daily basis is go out and use the laser scanner to scan buildings. So, we predominantly do that out in big building areas like the city or Sydney CBD, and we can also do it for roads, which we found really helpful. So, just scanning the buildings to give a better picture of what they look like, where the windows are, where the doors are, all that information that's really important for the Architects.

Jan Sialana: We usually start with pre-flight planning, which involves planning your flight so you don't have to manually fly your drone anymore when you're out in the field. And the next step would be actually going out there, fly the drone and collect data. And, after that, the exciting part is going back into the office and processing the data that we gathered from the field and make a 3D model out of it. This 3D model helps us create detailed and accurate plans, which in turn, Engineers and Architects use to design for engineering infrastructure.

Leneth Reyes: For me, the most exciting part of my job as a Surveyor is getting to play with the advanced surveying instruments that we have. We have different instruments for scanning. Once we go back to the office, we get to collate all of this data from various instruments and it's very satisfying to see a model combine from all these different techniques.

Roshni Sharma: One of the things that I love about working in this industry is that it gives me the opportunity to travel, whether it's to attend and speak at conferences internationally and nationally or whether that’s the chance to take up professional development opportunities that take me to different parts of the world. I was able to travel to Antarctica in 2023 for a Women in STEM Leadership Program. We’ve spent that time experiencing Antarctica, seeing the whales close up, seeing the penguins on landings on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Caitlin Williams: So, the main reward for me working in a career in surveying is watching the progression of a project from start to finish. So, we get to be the first people out on site and usually the last ones there. And then afterwards, we get to watch how it impacts on the community.

Roshni Sharma: Surveying and Spatial Information are absolutely vital to sustainability. Using satellite technologies, we're able to monitor exactly when we look at a forest, such as the Amazon, where the forest is shrinking, and when it’s shrinking. So, being able to measure, helps us mitigate where climatic impacts are happening.

Leneth Reyes: I would recommend getting a degree in surveying and this is a way for you to be able to learn everything about surveying, learn from professionals, be able to work and collaborate with your classmates and professors. And this is very important in surveying as well, learning how to work with other people.

Jan Sialana: So, right now, my role with SMEC is I am an experienced Surveyor and later on, like two or three years from now, I would really move into Business Development to help more into that space and do a little more impact for my team.

Roshni Sharma: The Surveying and Spatial Information Industry drives data driven decision making in a way that is often very much considered to be in the background. But the impact is phenomenal. There is so much opportunity in this industry. It really does have a place for everyone.

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