Meet the team: 5 Minutes with Jo Osborne

At SRVO Property, our Building Surveying team helps clients understand, manage and protect the condition, compliance and long-term performance of their property assets.

We caught up with Jo Osborne, Senior Building Surveyor, to learn more about her journey into property, her passion for historic buildings, and the experiences that shaped her career in building surveying.

With a strong interest in building pathology, heritage fabric and defect diagnosis, Jo brings a thoughtful and thorough approach to surveying, combining technical knowledge with professional integrity and a genuine appreciation for the stories buildings can tell.

Which recent project are you most proud of, and what did it teach you?

I recently completed an in-depth defect diagnosis report on a Grade II Listed commercial and residential heritage property. It was a complex puzzle, involving hidden water ingress issues and a number of other issues  that needed to be carefully investigated.

Finding the root causes reinforced an important lesson for me: irrespective of how advanced our diagnostic tools become , nothing can replace traditional investigation, professional judgement and a sound understanding of building fabric.

It also highlighted the importance of unpicking alterations made over time, particularly in historic properties where past interventions can significantly impact current defects.

Which of our values resonates most with you, and how do you live it day-to-day?

Professional integrity resonates with me the most. It is also one of the reasons I was first drawn to becoming a member of the RICS.

As a Senior Building Surveyor, clients and colleagues rely on my unbiased and honest assessment to support significant financial, safety and property-related decisions. That responsibility is something I take very seriously.

I live this value day to day by never cutting corners and by providing objective, transparent feedback. For me, integrity is about being thorough, honest and transparent, even when the findings are complex or difficult.

Describe your journey into property. What first drew you to the industry?

I grew up in an industrial brewing town, surrounded by derelict historic Victorian red-brick factories and warehouses. As a child, my best friend Louise and I would spend hours exploring (and occasionally trespassing in!) these abandoned industrial giants.

I remember sneaking into an old derelict cottage once and finding myself wading through inches of water that had flooded the red-tiled kitchen floor. The water was seeping into the structure and saturating some of the walls. I went home to get my wellies, returned and found the stopcock to shut the water mains off.

Saving the cottage from its own decay made me realise that I not only loved the history of buildings and the sense of time travel they offer, but also the thrill of diagnosing their problems and protecting their heritage.

Becoming a Building Surveyor felt like a completely natural evolution of what I had been doing since childhood… just without the trespassing!

If you could give one piece of advice to someone starting in our sector, what would it be?

I came into the profession through a career change and was not the typical graduate. I left a well-paid job with a strong bonus structure because I needed to follow my heart. I was a mature female professional with previous commercial and client-facing experience in property management and estate agency.

It is important to remember that there are various routes to RICS membership and in becoming a competent, experienced Building Surveyor, that is a safe pair of hands

My advice would be to seek out a mentor early and try to work with and learn from the best people in the industry. Building surveying is a profession where textbook knowledge only takes you so far. Real mastery is developed through on-site experience.

Find professionals whose work and standards you admire. Shadow them, observe how they think, problem-solve and communicate, and absorb as much as you can. Working alongside the right people early in your career can help accelerate your growth and progression within the industry.

It is also worth remembering that even a bad experience can still be a good experience…. if you learn from it.

What’s the most memorable or interesting thing you’ve seen on site or during a project?

Early in my career, I was sent to take meter readings in the sub-basements of Outer Temple Chambers on Chancery Lane. Hidden several metres below street level and carved into the bedrock, the space felt extraordinary.

With each level, making my way down the worn stone steps felt like travelling through time. I passed through iron-barred gates, searched for the original large Victorian key in dim light and made my way past the original holding cells, with rusted chains still fixed to the walls.

The meters were located in the original subterranean tunnel, where centuries ago prisoners would have been taken through that very passage, now blocked off, this tunnel led directly to the High Courts that werein the building opposite.

It was a privilege to experience it, albeit while trying to quiet my mind, not to the commuters above, but to my own imagination running riot.

What’s your favourite building?

It’s the orangery I haven’t built for myself yet.