You've got those magic five letters after your name: MRICS. Short of massively breaking the RICS code of conduct or stopping paying your subs, nobody can take that away from you. It's a huge milestone in your career and a genuine springboard to the next stage. So first things first: a massive, massive well done.

Step One: Celebrate

The last few months will have been full on, and the final few weeks an emotional rollercoaster, both leading up to your APC interview and then waiting for the result. So before anything else, get out there and celebrate with your loved ones. Fire up the barbecue, get the beer, wine or Prosecco out, and mark the achievement properly. You've earned it.

Step Two: Don't Pick Up the Phone to Recruiters (Yet)

If you've posted your good news on LinkedIn, you'll already know what's coming, and once the RICS publish their final pass list, you will get absolutely bombarded by recruiters, all promising you the earth and all, for obvious reasons, fairly self motivated to get hold of you.

Don't engage yet. Your boss and your business should be the first to have the conversation with you, explaining where your basic salary and benefits will increase to, and what their plans are for you. Listen to them first. Then go away, reflect for a week or so, and decide: did I like what I heard? Am I happy to stay and continue, or is it time to think about my wider career? Only at that point, if needed, reach out to the right recruiter, one who'll give you decent advice rather than a hard sell.

What Should You Now Expect in Salary?

I'll assume you've come through the traditional route: a degree or MSc, two to four years post qualification, and newly chartered. (If you've become MRICS later in your career, these numbers won't be as relevant.) As a basic, or basic and car allowance combined:

• London: roughly £44k to £52k
• South East (outside London): roughly £42k to £50k
• Rest of the UK: roughly £35k to £45k

That last bracket is wide, I know. In a major city such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds or Bristol, you should be in the top half of it; somewhere more rural, likely the lower end.

Why the ranges at all? Because different individuals are doing different things: the level of responsibility, the projects being managed, whether you're managing junior resource, and how much client contact you already have. And frankly, it also depends on how hard you negotiate with your current employer.

Understand this: you are in seriously high demand. There's been a chronic lack of investment in graduates over the last decade, and simple supply and demand puts you in a great position. In any major city, there will be multiple firms interested in bringing you on board, and your employer needs to reflect your new market worth in your pay. Look beyond the basic too: pension, healthcare, life insurance and bonus may all improve now you're chartered, so understand what those look like both with your current employer and in the wider market.

How Should Your Role Change?

The next conversation with your boss is about how your role develops over the coming year and beyond. Now you're MRICS, you should be a confident professional, certainly capable of managing your own projects. I appreciate that's not always straightforward in a large organisation working on massive schemes; nobody's making you lead QS or PM on a £300 million project overnight. But something does need to change.

You need to take on more responsibility. You need your own projects to manage. You need to start managing some junior resource. You need to step up. What you absolutely don't want is to become MRICS, pocket a nice salary bump, and find that fundamentally nothing about your role changes. Chartership should be a stepping stone, and your boss should have a vision for where you're going, backed by immediate changes that let you step up to that next stage of your professional development.

Is It Time to Leave Your Current Employer?

Many of you will have been with one employer since graduating and may never have experienced what else is out there. If you're still developing professionally and feel you have decent headroom, staying may be right. The acid test for me is two questions:

Question one: do I believe in the business I'm in? Its direction, its leadership, the quality of its service against the wider market, its ethics both internally and externally, and the genuine opportunity to advance within it.

Question two: does my immediate line manager have my best interests at heart, and do they have the internal influence to support my progression?

If you can answer yes to both, and you've been given a decent uplift in line with the numbers above, then heck yes, stay put. If you can't honestly answer yes to both, now is a great time to test the market. You really will not struggle for opportunities.

Two further things to watch for. The first is what I call graduate syndrome: if you've been with one business since graduating, or longer still if you did a part time degree, you'll often always be seen as the trainee, the grad, within that business, and it can limit your opportunity to stand on your own two feet. The second: are you in a business that is growing and ambitious? Chartership should be your springboard to climb the ladder quickly, and that often requires a business with the growth to create the rungs.

Should You Move Internationally?

I often refer to MRICS as a passport. Once you've got it, the world genuinely is your oyster, whether through an internal move with your existing employer or externally. Europe, New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, anywhere in the Gulf: with those letters after your name, you can pick almost anywhere. If international experience is something you've ever wanted, now is when the door opens.

Take Your Time

You'll be inundated with recruiters, and the danger is that one of them flashes a number at you, grabs your attention, and doesn't have your best interests at heart. You don't need to do anything quickly. Celebrate, listen to your current employer, secure a package that reflects your new market worth, and then decide whether this is still the business for you.

Loyalty to your employer is understandable. But if you conclude you won't continue advancing your professional journey as quickly as you'd like, you have no end of options out there. It's an exciting world for a newly chartered QS, PM or building surveyor.

Congratulations once again. It's a massive milestone. Now go celebrate.