From Village Boy to Senior QS — My 19 Year Journey in Quantity Surveying
Life Is Incredible
Nineteen years ago, I did not know that Quantity Surveying existed.
Not the job. Not the degree. Not the profession. Nothing.
I grew up in a village in Sri Lanka. We did not have the exposure that city kids had. We knew about Civil Engineering because everyone knew about Civil Engineering. But Quantity Surveying? That was not something anyone talked about where I came from.
I did not even own a computer.
Today I am a Senior Quantity Surveyor working on large scale international infrastructure projects. I manage million dollar claims. I administer FIDIC contracts. I hold MCIOB and MQSI professional qualifications. I write a professional blog read by construction professionals around the world. I have published three books on Amazon.
The distance between those two points is not talent. It is not luck. It is a series of small decisions, difficult years, and one piece of advice from a stranger that changed the entire direction of my life.
This is that story.
The Advice That Changed Everything
After finishing my Advanced Level examinations in Sri Lanka, my plan was straightforward. I would enroll in a Civil Engineering certificate course. I had not passed at the level required for university entry, but a certificate course was within reach. Civil Engineering was what I knew. It was the only technical career I had ever heard of.
Then one of my father's friends visited. He was a Chartered Engineer, and he heard about my plan.
He said something I have never forgotten: "There is a course called Quantity Surveying. You should look at that. There are more opportunities in that field."
I did not know what Quantity Surveying was. I had never heard the words before. I did not know what a QS did, what they measured, who they worked for, or what kind of projects they worked on.
But I trusted that advice. And I enrolled in the QS certificate course at a government technical college in Sri Lanka.
That decision was the turning point of my entire life.
The AutoCAD Draftsman Who Wanted to Be a QS
Around the same time I started the QS certificate course, I also enrolled in a short AutoCAD and draughtsmanship course. Eight months. Practical skills. Something that could get me working quickly.
When I completed the draughtsmanship course, I got my first job. AutoCAD operator at a Japanese construction company, working on one of the largest infrastructure projects in the country.
I was on site every day. Drawing. Learning. Watching. And studying QS at the weekend.
Then something happened that I did not plan for but will never forget.
My company boss knew I was studying Quantity Surveying. Whenever a QS team member took extended leave, particularly during Interim Payment Application submission periods when the workload was highest, he gave me the chance to work temporarily in the QS department.
Those temporary placements changed everything.
Sitting in that department, working on actual payment applications, seeing how quantities were measured and valued and submitted, I felt something I had not felt before in a workplace. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be. This was not just a job I could do. This was the career I wanted.
When I completed my QS certificate course, the same company promoted me to Assistant Quantity Surveyor.
My new life had begun.
TIME IS MONEY
Working for a Japanese company from the very first day of my career shaped how I think about professional life in ways I did not fully appreciate at the time.
One of my Japanese managers said something to me early in my career that I have never forgotten. Four words.
"TIME IS MONEY."
It sounds simple. But coming from a village where resources were limited and every opportunity had to be earned, those words landed with real weight.
I understood them immediately and personally. As a village boy who had to save for seven years to afford a university degree, I already knew that wasted time was wasted money. Every minute spent unproductively was a minute of earning potential gone. Every delay in a project was a cost. Every hour of idle plant was a financial loss. Every missed deadline was a commercial consequence.
That principle shaped how I approach my professional work to this day. It is why I adopted AI tools early and seriously. Not because technology is exciting, but because AI saves time. And saved time, in construction, is saved money. For the project, for the company, and for the professional who manages their day efficiently.
"TIME IS MONEY" is not just a phrase I heard once from a manager. It is the operating principle of my entire professional life.
Seven Years of Saving
The Assistant QS salary was a real income. Steady. Growing. Enough to live on and enough to start building toward something bigger.
After one year of working, I bought my first vehicle with money I had earned myself. A motorcycle. It was small. It was brand new. It was completely mine. I remember that feeling very clearly.
But the goal I really wanted was a degree. A proper university degree in Quantity Surveying.
The cost of a private university degree in Sri Lanka at that time was significant compared to an Assistant QS salary. It was not impossible. But it was not close. I calculated what I needed and I started saving.
Then I got married. New expenses. New responsibilities. The timeline extended.
Seven years. That is how long it took from the decision to pursue the degree to the day I could actually afford to enroll.
Seven years of working, saving, watching the goal slowly become reachable. Not rushing. Not giving up. Just continuing.
I completed my BSc (Hons) in Quantity Surveying. And because of the professional reputation I had built through consistent work and commitment during those years, I continued growing within the same company. Promotions came. Recognition came. Opportunities came.
The International Career
Once financially stable, I pursued my professional qualifications. MCIOB. MQSI. Each one represented years of professional development alongside full time project work.
Then came the overseas opportunity. Large scale infrastructure. FIDIC contracts. International teams. A project where the commercial stakes were measured in hundreds of millions.
The village boy who had never heard of Quantity Surveying was now managing subcontract claims worth over a million dollars, negotiating with Engineers under FIDIC Pink Book conditions, and advising senior management on commercial strategy.
The Hardest Part of the Journey:
The financial difficulty in the early years was real but temporary. You find ways through. You save. You wait. You keep working.
The harder challenge, the one that does not get easier with time, is being away from family. Working overseas means missing things. Every construction professional who works internationally knows this weight. The project demands your presence. The people you love are somewhere else.
That is the real cost of an international career. Not the long hours. Not the difficult contracts. Not the complex claims. The distance from the people who matter most.
It is a weight that professional success does not remove. It is something you carry alongside everything else.
What Has Changed in 19 Years
When I started my career, I did not own a computer. There was no internet in my village in any practical sense. Information about careers, about professions, about opportunities beyond what your immediate community knew about, was genuinely hard to access.
Today a young person in a village in Sri Lanka, or anywhere in the world, can find out about Quantity Surveying in thirty seconds on their phone. They can access free study resources. They can follow professional blogs. They can connect with practicing QS professionals on LinkedIn. They can watch tutorials, read about FIDIC contracts, and learn what the profession actually involves before they even enrol in a course.
When I started, QS was not widely known in Sri Lanka. Today it is a recognized, respected profession with growing demand. The opportunities that took me years to discover through one piece of advice from one person are now visible to anyone with a smartphone.
That is genuinely remarkable. And it is one of the reasons I started this blog.
Why I Started AI Construction Hub
This blog exists because of that village boy who did not know what Quantity Surveying was.
If someone had been writing professionally about construction practice, AI tools, FIDIC contracts, and QS career development eighteen years ago, and if I had been able to read it, my journey might have been faster. I might have understood sooner what the profession involved. I might have made better decisions earlier.
I cannot go back and give that information to my younger self. But I can share it now, with the next generation of QS professionals who are where I was eighteen years ago.
That is what every article on this blog is trying to do. Share real professional experience. Not theory. Not generic advice. Real situations from real projects, written by someone who has lived every stage of this profession from AutoCAD draftsman to Senior QS on an international infrastructure project.
My Advice to the Young Professional Starting Out Today
If you are a young person from a small town or a village, looking at a construction career and wondering whether it is possible for someone like you, here is what I want you to know:
The profession does not care where you started. It cares about what you build.
Study consistently. Work harder than you think you need to. Save for what you want even if it takes years. Accept opportunities that scare you a little because those are the ones that grow you most. Get your professional qualifications. Never stop learning.
And remember the four words my Japanese manager gave me at the very start of my career: TIME IS MONEY. Every minute you invest wisely in your career is a minute that compounds over time. Every minute you waste is gone permanently.
Use the tools available to you. When I started, I had no computer. You have a smartphone, the internet, LinkedIn, AI tools, and a world of information that I could not have imagined in my early years. Use all of it. Use it professionally. Use it to grow faster than my generation could.
But remember what AI cannot replace. Judgment. Relationships. Professional integrity. The ability to sit across the table from an Engineer and defend your position with confidence because you know your subject and you know your project. Those things still require years of genuine professional development. There is no shortcut.
Life Is Incredible
If I could go back and speak to the village boy who had just heard the words "Quantity Surveying" for the first time and had no idea what they meant, I would not give him a long speech.
I would just say three words.
Life is incredible.
Because it is. The distance from not owning a computer to managing international infrastructure contracts is real. The journey from a government technical college certificate course to MCIOB and MQSI qualifications is real. The path from not knowing what QS meant to writing about it professionally for thousands of readers is real.
None of it happened quickly. None of it happened easily. But all of it happened because of one decision, made with incomplete information, based on one piece of advice from one person.
You do not need to have everything figured out at the start. You just need to start.
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About The Author
A practicing Quantity Surveyor with extensive experience in large scale infrastructure projects under FIDIC conditions. Started as an AutoCAD draftsman at a Japanese construction company. Built a career step by step over 19years.
Qualifications:
- BSc (Hons) Quantity Surveying
- MCIOB, Chartered Institute of Building
- MQSI, Quantity Surveyor Institute Member
This blog shares real professional experience from live construction projects, not theoretical content.
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