The economic downturn hasn?t just hurt industries in the United Kingdom. Even the Middle East is experiencing a slump with vacancies in construction and quantity surveying jobs not as numerous as perhaps a couple of years ago.

One of the reasons for this is the boom period in Dubai has come to a halt with the economic slump impacting this area of the world too. However, governments, particularly in the Middle East, are still spending on civil projects.

The Dubai Government has pumped large sums of money in to projects and established financial support fund to kick start a recovery from the current financial crisis. One project is The Dubai World Central airport, which will be the world?s largest airport, scheduled to open on time in 2010.

Further opportunities could be seen in the Middle East with the building of the world?s largest shopping mall, which will also be in Dubai. Opportunities are also arising in other countries in the Middle East with construction jobs and quantity surveying jobs appearing through agencies such as Humres.

There has been a perception that many of the vacancies arising overseas are demanding lower salaries than in previous years. This trend has been bucked by some countries in the Commonwealth such as Canada.

For example wages rises in Canada have seen experienced quantity surveyors commanding ?61,400, rather than the ?50,000 they were on in 2008. Similar large rises in salaries have been seen with structural and civil engineers too.

In Australia and New Zealand wages are holding up well in spite of the recession. For skilled workers in the industry interested the adventure of working in a different country, the job market is not complete doom and gloom.