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Value in IEng Registration

Afternoon all, just sitting behind a laptop screen pondering and found myself plotting course for my career progression and seemingly unlikely professional registration for CEng.

My current employer has encouraged that I achieve CEng registration (easier said than done) and any promotion to the next grade would be subject to attaining CEng. I'm wary of submitting my application for CEng due to not having an adequate level of education (I have a Bachelors degree only) and at my age there's little chance of me returning to university for further study. I'm employed as a senior engineer and acting principal engineer within a project I'm currently commissioned. I appreciate that working at a principal engineer level does not necessarily provide the evidence required to prove that my understanding and knowledge is at a MEng level.

Rewind a few years, I was reasonably proud of successful registration and to achieve IEng, however, to date I'm of the opinion that it has done little else other than measurement / benchmark of my competence and identify area's in which I need to strengthen. My employer (at the time of registration) did not professionally recognise IEng registration and from my own observations nor do other employers (that I've noticed). A cursory glance of job listings on LinkedIn, shall normally state a requirement for applicants to hold CEng registration or working towards CEng with no mention of IEng. There's an immense pressure to achieve Chartership and with failure to do so could be possibly observed as I'm either inadequate or not quite cutting the grade by a prospective or current employer.

Is there any value to the IEng registration other than a personal achievement and worth maintaining? I imagine the nervousness and apprehension about navigating the CEng route and the fear of failure that I'm not unique in this respect and other's may have a similar story? Not sure what I would wish to hear, but knowing of others that succeeded with a similar background and level of education would provide some encouragement.

Regards,

Allan.

Parents

0 Richard Meadows over 4 years ago

Hello everyone,
I’ve been reading this thread with a lot of interest. I’ve been doing PRA work for around 10 years – first as the Industry Rep for the company for which I worked; then as PRA in my own right following retirement. I’ve lost count of the number of applicants I have helped through the registration process, at EngTech, IEng and CEng – and by the way, Fellowship too.

One of the key issues I find with CEng applicants is getting them to distinguish their application from what is effectively a very good IEng application; both in terms of Underpinning Knowledge and Understanding (UK&U) and competence. I try to make this very clear to all CEng applicants I advise at the outset.

In this thread, I see quite a lot of references to UK-SPEC in terms of competencies and one or two mentions of the education requirements. As Andy has pointed out, the IET doesn’t mention Masters in their documentation, which in some ways is good – but not always. We know that a Masters qualification is not a requirement, but proving that your knowledge and understanding is at this level is, and this is where issues creep in.

During the first stage of the assessment process, the application is peer-reviewed, both for UK&U and competence evidence. For those having accredited MEng (or in most cases, non-accredited too) or equivalents, the UK&U requirements are effectively met. The challenges I tend to find are with those who do not possess an exemplifying qualification. Proving that your UK&U is at the exemplifying level if you hold a significantly lower qualification can be tough.

A practical example here – a “mature” engineer, around 40 years of experience in Engineering, much of it a mix of design and hands-on; working as the Director of a reasonably-sized company. Loads of competence experience, plenty of leadership and accountability; no problem at all with meeting “proficient” or “expert” level in an IPD assessment. But here’s the problem…

So far as UK&U is concerned, their highest formal qualification is an HNC, gained in the mid-70s. So, if we look at UK-SPEC, they almost certainly pass on competence; but if we look at UK&U, it’s a very different story. Most of their experience is with routine 7671-type calculations, use of software tools, fault level and discrimination work and similar – and lots of it – but that’s not really evidence of Masters level UK&U in itself. [Some facts changed to protect any individual’s identity, by the way, but it equates to a real case!]

In this case, UK&U for IEng would likely be satisfied with the pre-1999 HNC and with their competence library, IEng would be no issue. But what about their CEng application? Clearly, they don’t have an exemplifying qualification or anything near. If we look at their further learning, loads of on-the-job training but little further learning, formal or otherwise in terms of taking their technical knowledge and understanding forward.

These are the tough ones to deal with from the PRA’s perspective. We want people to achieve their ambitions and goals. On the other hand, we need to manage expectations – which is also mentioned in the PRA guidance. Having read and re-read the thread, I don’t see this issue mentioned very much and felt I needed to add some depth into this aspect. Having seen CEng applicants, effectively being “railroaded” into making an application by their employers, then having problems with UK&U evidence – IMHO this is an understated problem.

As a PRA, if I am advising a CEng candidate without an exemplifying qualification, one of the first “challenges” I give them before they embark on a lengthy application is “try to think about how you are going to satisfy the UK-SPEC education/further learning requirements.” Some candidates come up with extensive workplace learning, but others – like the example above don’t. In the light of what has been written so far, I'm interested in everyone’s views on this.
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0 Richard Meadows over 4 years ago

Hello everyone,
I’ve been reading this thread with a lot of interest. I’ve been doing PRA work for around 10 years – first as the Industry Rep for the company for which I worked; then as PRA in my own right following retirement. I’ve lost count of the number of applicants I have helped through the registration process, at EngTech, IEng and CEng – and by the way, Fellowship too.

One of the key issues I find with CEng applicants is getting them to distinguish their application from what is effectively a very good IEng application; both in terms of Underpinning Knowledge and Understanding (UK&U) and competence. I try to make this very clear to all CEng applicants I advise at the outset.

In this thread, I see quite a lot of references to UK-SPEC in terms of competencies and one or two mentions of the education requirements. As Andy has pointed out, the IET doesn’t mention Masters in their documentation, which in some ways is good – but not always. We know that a Masters qualification is not a requirement, but proving that your knowledge and understanding is at this level is, and this is where issues creep in.

During the first stage of the assessment process, the application is peer-reviewed, both for UK&U and competence evidence. For those having accredited MEng (or in most cases, non-accredited too) or equivalents, the UK&U requirements are effectively met. The challenges I tend to find are with those who do not possess an exemplifying qualification. Proving that your UK&U is at the exemplifying level if you hold a significantly lower qualification can be tough.

A practical example here – a “mature” engineer, around 40 years of experience in Engineering, much of it a mix of design and hands-on; working as the Director of a reasonably-sized company. Loads of competence experience, plenty of leadership and accountability; no problem at all with meeting “proficient” or “expert” level in an IPD assessment. But here’s the problem…

So far as UK&U is concerned, their highest formal qualification is an HNC, gained in the mid-70s. So, if we look at UK-SPEC, they almost certainly pass on competence; but if we look at UK&U, it’s a very different story. Most of their experience is with routine 7671-type calculations, use of software tools, fault level and discrimination work and similar – and lots of it – but that’s not really evidence of Masters level UK&U in itself. [Some facts changed to protect any individual’s identity, by the way, but it equates to a real case!]

In this case, UK&U for IEng would likely be satisfied with the pre-1999 HNC and with their competence library, IEng would be no issue. But what about their CEng application? Clearly, they don’t have an exemplifying qualification or anything near. If we look at their further learning, loads of on-the-job training but little further learning, formal or otherwise in terms of taking their technical knowledge and understanding forward.

These are the tough ones to deal with from the PRA’s perspective. We want people to achieve their ambitions and goals. On the other hand, we need to manage expectations – which is also mentioned in the PRA guidance. Having read and re-read the thread, I don’t see this issue mentioned very much and felt I needed to add some depth into this aspect. Having seen CEng applicants, effectively being “railroaded” into making an application by their employers, then having problems with UK&U evidence – IMHO this is an understated problem.

As a PRA, if I am advising a CEng candidate without an exemplifying qualification, one of the first “challenges” I give them before they embark on a lengthy application is “try to think about how you are going to satisfy the UK-SPEC education/further learning requirements.” Some candidates come up with extensive workplace learning, but others – like the example above don’t. In the light of what has been written so far, I'm interested in everyone’s views on this.
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