Engineering Professional Registration 101
WES London Cluster
Cluster Coordinator for London Area at Women's Engineering Society
Written by: Emma Spillane | Daniella Reis | Laura Luckhurst
So, you’re interested in professional registration? That is brilliant! But what next? What is the process? What category should I apply for? How do I get myself setup to apply?
Here are some tips & learnings from the WES London cluster. These should help as a starting point but do have a look online for more in-depth insight and processes.
The process you follow will depend on a lot of different things
It is dependent on your experience, your previous role, where you studied, engineering institute you want to become a member of and the professional title you go for. However typically there are two routes to registration
·????????Standard Route where your formal education meets the criteria
·????????Alternative or Experience Route. This can involve equating your career-based learning to educational requirements or it can involve writing a thesis style document or following the progression from an EngTech - > IENG - >CENG
Often engineers who studied outside of the UK follow the alternative route.
Start to track your work experience, learnings & training
The earlier you get into the habit of summarizing key roles, projects, and engineering problems you solve - the easier it will be when you come to writing your application.
You will not have to try rack your brain remembering what you did years ago and it will give you many pre-written examples and projects to choose from. Use the STAR framework to prepare your examples.
Situation | Task | Actions I took | Result
If you prefer not to use the star method start by jotting down what you did that was new in this project, what the engineering challenges /difficulties were in the project and how you overcame them.
Find an engineering institute that is right for you
Depending on your background, industry, and personal preference there is an institute out there for you. UK examples include
The institute is there to offer support and guidance throughout the program and will submit your registration assessment to the Engineering Council [EC] on your behalf.
Before joining, make sure they can support your professional registration journey & check any applicant criteria you may need to meet
Once a member you’ll get access to help whether it is a mentor, volunteers, developing engineers’ program. As well as online webinars for help on registration. Take advantage of these services!
Check what registration category is best for you
There are 4 engineering professional titles – all are highly regarded and a great professional achievement! They are described here on the EC website, and can be seen in the image below:
Engineering technician | ICT technician | Incorporated engineer | Chartered engineer
The title that suits you will be dependent on your background, experience, role, responsibility. Be honest with yourself and ask a colleague or the institute to help you define what category is best suited to you at this point in time.
Get to know the Engineering Council specifications inside out
This is the most important step: You can find these on the EC website at?UK-SPEC?for EngTech, IEng or CEng and in the?ICTTech Standard for ICTTech.
The specification is a handbook for what behaviors and experience you need to demonstrate in order to become professional registered. These are called competencies & there are 5 groups:
A – Knowledge and understanding
B – Design, development and solving engineering problems
C – Responsibility, management, and leadership
D – Communication and interpersonal skills
E – Professional commitment
The Ds around communication and E’s around professional commitment are just as important to demonstrate as your engineering problem solving skills.
Once you become familiar with the different competencies, you can start to map them to your projects & experience. As shown below
Situation | Task | Actions I took | Result | Competency
This will easily help you identify any gaps in your experience or knowledge. Again, be honest with yourself and if needed re-evaluate the category you are applying for if there are large gaps that you do not foresee being filled on your current career path.
Once you recognize where you need more experience you are in the best position to get help & drive your development forward! Tell your colleagues / manager/ supporters/mentors to keep you in mind for any activities that will help you gain experience where you need it.
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Find a mentor who can review your evidence
Ideally your mentor should be someone who has been through the process or is familiar with the engineering professional registration. If there is not a colleague or friend who can help, the institute you have joined will be able to provide this guidance via a mentor or some other service.
When you come to submitting you need to have 2 sponsors to verify your application. At least one of them should be a professional engineer on the level you’re applying (or above) and the other can be a professional engineer or your line manager. Make sure you’ve made them aware and briefed them in advance.
Submit & wait to hear back
When you’ve worked through the competencies, got some support and feedback and feel confident you meet the criteria -you’re ready to submit (it may take years to get to this point- so be patient ??).
Your application will go through different review steps – this varies institute to institute. You may be asked to submit more evidence or additional information.
You will be required to pay a fee - if concerned about this, why not ask your employee to sponsor you – if your registration is of benefit to the company, they might be willing to reimburse and support you. Especially if you can encourage future internal applicants along
Practice & prepare for the interview
If you’re application has passed the various review steps, you are likely to be invited to an interview.
‘This interview is the only interview in your life where you will know the questions before you go in’ and it is true! You know exactly what the interviewers are looking for and what you need to demonstrate…. The competencies in the UK engineering specifications
Study the specs if you do not already know them inside out! Have examples to hand for each of the competencies and again use the STAR framework to prepare your examples.
Use some of the key words from the competencies in your response. E.g., Competency C4 is all about continuous improvement. “I was involved in a project xyz… my role was to bring about continuous improvement in xyz. I completed these steps… the outcome of my contribution was the xyz was more efficient & optimal.”
They will also ask you questions from your application, to expand on the examples that you used or to give more details.
Throughput the interview to be clear on what was your contribution is ‘I designed this, I managed that’ the interviewers want to know what you did not what ‘we’ did.
Practice and prepare. You cannot over prepare here. Ask colleagues/friends to do so a mock interview with you with some prepared example questions and ask them to throw in some curve balls.
Good luck!
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Lots more information can be found on the Engineering Council website -around criteria, how to apply, wallet size cards to help you learn about the specification. As well as the individual professional institute websites! Find below some links to further information you may find useful!