Degree in Engineering of Building
The Title of Graduate in Building Engineering enables the exercise of the profession of Technical Architect (Order ECI / 3855/2007 of December 27). This Order determines the conditions and requirements that this Study Plan must have fulfilled so that, once passed, the student can exercise the profession. In this way, the profession of Quantity Surveyor and Technical Architect adopt from the name the necessary position to face the technological challenges of the 21st century. This title makes possible the access to the specialization masters and the access to the doctorate, which implies of investigative capacity and normality for the development of an administrative or teaching career. This title inherits the powers established in Spanish legislation for the Technical Architect with special emphasis on Law 38/1999 of November 5, on Building Management.
The Polytechnic University of Cartagena has been teaching studies to obtain the title of Technical Architect since the 2000-2001 academic year.
The title of Graduate or Graduate in Building Engineering is a generalist title that arises to exercise the profession associated with the current title of Technical Architect and for the acquisition by the graduate of competencies associated with the objectives derived from the professional profiles established in the White Paper for the Degree in Building Engineering, which appears as an external reference for this report (section 2.2.1). That is, to carry out the professional functions regulated by the legislation cited in this section and prepare the graduate to potentially acquire the status of master and doctor. Academic possibility that when culminating in the scientific capacity, granted by the doctorate, will allow investigating problematic aspects of the building process that have not been addressed so far due to the absence of the appropriate legal framework.
The professional sectors in which the technical architect carries out his professional work have initially been grouped into three large blocks that aim to collect all possible variables:
Administration. The insertion of these professionals in the different administrations is evident, although the local Administration should be highlighted for its importance. To it are added the provincial, autonomous and state, with emphasis on the Finance and Educational Administrations, as well as the Ministry of Development.
Business. It covers a large number of them, starting, of course, with the promoter and construction companies, as the most related, without neglecting other companies such as banks and their valuations, or real estate appraisal companies, material manufacturers, quality control entities, technical control bodies, prevention services, insurance companies and approved quality control laboratories.
Free exercise of the profession. The corresponding data is obtained, fundamentally, through the Professional Association, even though they can be contrasted through the heading that for the profession includes in its statistics the Ministry of Economy and Finance within the Tax on Economic Activities.
As evidenced in section 4 of the White Book on Building Engineering, the regulated profession of Technical Architect, for which it enables the requested title, responds to a social and sectoral need repeatedly established by the place it occupies in official surveys. : one of the first three positions in the set of Spanish university degrees. In the same section it is said:
Analyzing therefore the Cheers project carried out in the period 1997-2001 and published in July 2002 by Bancaja, under the name "the employment situation of Spanish graduates", the job placement of Technical Architects in Spain is 97.4%, the unemployment rate being 1.3%.
In the statement of November 7, 2006 before the Congress Committee on Education and Science, the president of the CES, Marcos Peña, pointed out that the technical architect, among the twenty most significant degrees, is the one that receives the most job offers, a 8.4 percent of the total according to data from 2003 and 2004.
The Region of Murcia has traditionally based its economy on agriculture. However, the demand for homes destined for second residence by nationals and foreigners, with the consequent demand for urban buildings to meet the needs for housing and services, has made building the main regional economic engine. This situation, verifiable in all regional and national and European economic indicators, adds to the ordinary offer of employment for graduates of Technical Architecture (the largest among Spanish university degrees) an extraordinary indigenous offer. The result is a demand for enrollments and graduates of such magnitude that fully justifies the need for the implantation of the title of Building Engineer that inherits the powers of the regulated profession of Technical Architect.
The regulated profession of Technical Architect is taught in thirty Spanish public and private universities. The university centers that offer this degree are grouped in the Conference of Directors of Schools of Technical Architecture in order to coordinate their organizational and teaching action.The degree that is proposed is the natural evolution from the current Technical Architect, which, in turn, He comes from the title of Quantity Surveyor that was taught until the 1964-1965 academic year, always within the branch of Architecture in which he currently develops his own functions.
For the purposes of this report, the name of Technical Architect has been chosen, because that name does not exist as such in most countries of the European Union. For this reason, a name that is easily understood has been sought. In this way, the mobility of graduates in the European Higher Education Area is facilitated given that, in the other countries of the European Union, degrees with comparable academic content and related professional exercises have names among which engineering predominates.