Surveyor Make exact measurements and determine property boundaries. Provide data relevant to the shape, contour, gravitation, location, elevation, or dimension of land or land features on or near the earth's surface for engineering, mapmaking, mining, land evaluation, construction, and other purposes.
Surveyor is Also Know as
In different settings, Surveyor is titled as
- City Surveyor
- County Surveyor
- Land Surveyor
- Licensed Land Surveyor
- Mine Surveyor
- Professional Land Surveyor
- Registered Land Surveyor
- Staff Land Surveyor
- State Surveyor
- Surveyor
Education and Training of Surveyor
Surveyor is categorized in Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Surveyor
A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
Education Required for Surveyor
Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not.
Degrees Related to Surveyor
- Bachelor in Surveying Engineering
- Associate Degree Courses in Surveying Engineering
- Masters Degree Courses in Surveying Engineering
- Bachelor in Surveying Technology/Surveying
- Associate Degree Courses in Surveying Technology/Surveying
- Masters Degree Courses in Surveying Technology/Surveying
Training Required for Surveyor
Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Surveyor in different industries are
- Geodetic Surveyors
- Surveying and Mapping Technicians
- Construction and Building Inspectors
- Geological Technicians, Except Hydrologic Technicians
- Cartographers and Photogrammetrists
- Civil Engineering Technologists and Technicians
- Civil Engineers
- Mining and Geological Engineers, Including Mining Safety Engineers
- Architectural and Civil Drafters
- Appraisers and Assessors of Real Estate
- Geoscientists, Except Hydrologists and Geographers
- Conservation Scientists
- Government Property Inspectors and Investigators
- Transportation Inspectors
- Hydrologists
- Forest and Conservation Technicians
- Cost Estimators
- Architects, Except Landscape and Naval
- Construction Managers
- Landscape Architects
What Do Surveyor do?
- Prepare and maintain sketches, maps, reports, and legal descriptions of surveys to describe, certify, and assume liability for work performed.
- Verify the accuracy of survey data, including measurements and calculations conducted at survey sites.
- Direct or conduct surveys to establish legal boundaries for properties, based on legal deeds and titles.
- Record the results of surveys, including the shape, contour, location, elevation, and dimensions of land or land features.
- Calculate heights, depths, relative positions, property lines, and other characteristics of terrain.
- Prepare, or supervise preparation of, all data, charts, plots, maps, records, and documents related to surveys.
- Write descriptions of property boundary surveys for use in deeds, leases, or other legal documents.
- Plan and conduct ground surveys designed to establish baselines, elevations, and other geodetic measurements.
- Search legal records, survey records, and land titles to obtain information about property boundaries in areas to be surveyed.
- Coordinate findings with the work of engineering and architectural personnel, clients, and others concerned with projects.
- Adjust surveying instruments to maintain their accuracy.
- Establish fixed points for use in making maps, using geodetic and engineering instruments.
- Determine longitudes and latitudes of important features and boundaries in survey areas, using theodolites, transits, levels, and satellite-based global positioning systems (GPS).
- Train assistants and helpers, and direct their work in such activities as performing surveys or drafting maps.
- Analyze survey objectives and specifications to prepare survey proposals or to direct others in survey proposal preparation.
- Compute geodetic measurements and interpret survey data to determine positions, shapes, and elevations of geomorphic and topographic features.
- Develop criteria for survey methods and procedures.
- Develop criteria for the design and modification of survey instruments.
- Conduct research in surveying and mapping methods, using knowledge of photogrammetric map compilation and electronic data processing.
- Locate and mark sites selected for geophysical prospecting activities, such as efforts to locate petroleum or other mineral products.
- Survey bodies of water to determine navigable channels and to secure data for construction of breakwaters, piers, and other marine structures.
- Direct aerial surveys of specified geographical areas.
- Determine specifications for equipment to be used for aerial photography, as well as altitudes from which to photograph terrain.
- Testify as an expert witness in court cases on land survey issues, such as property boundaries.
Qualities of Good Surveyor
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Surveyor
- Abney levels
- Altimeters
- Automatic levels
- Automatic slope lasers
- Barometers
- Clinometers
- Curvimeters
- Depth gauge tapes
- Digital laser rangefinders
- Digital measuring poles
- Direct elevation rods
- Distance meters
- Dot lasers
- Double right-angle prisms
- Electronic digital levels
- Electronic digital theodolites
- Elevator tripods
- Gammon reels
- Geological compasses
- Global positioning system GPS receivers
- Hand levels
- Handheld measuring lasers
- Integrated global positioning systems GPS
- Invisible beam lasers
- Laptop computers
- Laser plumb bobs
- Laser scanners
- Line lasers
- Long range reflectorless total stations
- Machetes
- Magnetic locators
- Measuring rods
- Measuring tapes
- Mechanical theodolites
- Philadelphia rods
- Planimeters
- Plumb bobs
- Pocket personal computers PC
- Pocket transits
- Prism poles
- Prismless total stations
- Reflectorless total stations
- Right-angle prisms
- Road measuring wheels
- Robotic total stations
- Robotic tripods
- Rod levels
- Rotary lasers
- San Francisco rods
- Side scan sonars
- Single-beam echo sounders
- Single-beam transducers
- Stereoscopes
- Surveyors leveling rods
- Telescopic viewers
- Total stations
- Tracking lasers
- Transit levels
- Tribrachs
- Tripods
- Two way radios
- Visible beam lasers
Technology Skills required for Surveyor
- Autodesk AutoCAD
- Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D
- Autodesk AutoCAD Land Desktop
- Bentley GeoPak Bridge
- Bentley MicroStation
- Bentley Systems InRoads Suite
- Cadcorp desktop GIS
- Carlson SurvCADD
- Carlson SurvCE
- Carlson Survey
- CE SURVEYOR III
- CloudWorks
- CMT Incorporated CogoCAD
- Computer aided design and drafting software CADD
- Crones & Associations Project Tracker Pro
- Cyclone
- Data logging software
- Data transfer software
- Drafting software
- ESRI ArcGIS software
- ESRI ArcView
- Geocomp Systems GeoNav
- Geodetic software
- Geographic information system GIS software
- Geographic information system GIS systems
- Geomechanical design analysis GDA software
- Global positioning system GPS software
- HYPACK HYSWEEP
- HYPACK MAX
- Internet browser software
- Latitude software
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Word
- MicroSurvey FieldGenius
- MicroSurveyCAD
- NOAA Shoreline Data Explorer
- PC-Mapper software
- Project analysis and costing software
- Project data integration software
- Sharetech Tabs Plus
- Sokkia Imap
- Sokkia Spectrum Survey Suite
- Spreadsheet software
- Surface modeling software
- Survey software
- Topographic database software
- Trimble HYDROpro
- Trimble Terramodel