Having won 'Young Surveyor of the Year 2021' Abigail was the best person to come and share her advice on choosing a career within the real estate industry.

Abigail, a Director for Savills in the Cambridge Development department, specialises in providing residential development agency advice to landowners, property companies and educational institutions on their immediate and strategic land and property assets. She also provides development consultancy, including Local Plan Viability and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) advice across Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and the East of England.

Leading the Planning and Development APC training programme within Savills, Abigail is an APC Assessor, Supervisor, Councellor and Mentor. Alongside this she leads the Development Thought Leadership initiative within Savills working closely with the National Research team and was invited to be on the Future Leaders panel at the RESI conference in 2021.

Abigail introduced herself to the Sixth Form and spoke about her choice of A levels, university courses and how, for her, she kept her options as open as possible. The thought of choosing a career at the age of 17 or 18 was too daunting. She also spoke about reading geography at the University of Nottingham, life at university, and her subsequent move into chartered surveying at Savills. Her story was fascinating and really engaged our pupils, hearing from an Old Oswestrians who had 'been there' and 'done it'. 

Listening with enthusiasm the Sixth Form heard how life at Oswestry School offered Abigail opportunities far greater than she appreciated at the time. Speaking of her opportunities to experience drama, ESB/Lamda, school trips, becoming a Prefect and participating in sporting teams Abigail recounted how all of this provided her with the interpersonal skills to become the successful woman she is today. Indeed, as Head of Spooner House, the role gave Abigail many of the skills she still uses every day. She spoke about the power of saying ‘yes’ to any and all opportunities.