There is little doubt that data will be used to support and improve decision making, and rewrite business processes. The advent of the so-called digital age has ushered in better systems, more data sources and programming nous to address the complicated decisions the property market is asking of surveyors and valuers.

It’s been happening in every walk of life for some time. If you have any doubts, all you need to do is look at your everyday activities to discover how easily real-time information is now provided to us as consumers.

Everywhere you look in housing, data and digital innovation are changing the way we design, build, sell and fund property. From Building Information Modelling in housing design to Modern methods of Construction and ultimately valuation and survey reporting, data plays a crucial role in delivering the assessment of property value to home owners.

Alternative data sources are widely used in surveying, including information on subsidence, the path of HS2 and Crossrail, reports on soil kinds and toxins, and flood data. It’s a natural progression from desk-top comparables. However, the effect is obvious. Real-time information can help with query handling and real-time judgments. If the information is handled appropriately, it can mean that a subsidence specialist can be sent out immediately if one is needed on the scene. It can also provide very strong justifications for the opinions that are expressed and the standards that are applied.

The rate of development will eventually change the way we go about accomplishing tasks that are really basic, just like it has in other areas of our lives. Geographical feature data is already widely available. The only thing left to do is choose which factors should guide our decisions and subsequent actions and how much weight we apportion to them in our decision-making.

We know there are significant challenges. Timeliness, completeness and accuracy of data are all important in delivering better decisions. But with the right sources and expert insight, data products are impacting every element of what we do.

It’s in this spirit that we launched our remote valuations for new builds which uses the accumulated data and insight of its new build database to identify sites that can be used for quicker remote valuations, which take an average of four days less than a physical valuation, which also costs less and produces fewer carbon emissions by reducing site visits. It’s the rationale and methodology upon which we built our UK cladding database.

Society is being led in new directions by big data. We are going to enter a new era of capabilities through expanded data analysis, which will alter every area of our lives and, in some circumstances, already is. We will continue to innovate in this space and others as our expertise finds new markets in which we can take the expertise and experience we have and apply them in digital formats that add real value to our clients.

James Ginley, Director of Technical Surveying, e.surv