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Value in IEng Registration

Allan Rowan
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. 

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    Roy Bowdler:

    Many institutions, still as they always have, treat the competences as a “light touch bolt on” to academic qualifications. Only the IET would (occasionally) insult an MEng graduate by suggesting that they were “doing IEng work”. This even extends to someone with a CEng accredited BEng degree...  
           

     


    Which is a completely unhelpful approach - we (employers, assessors, accident investigators etc etc) already know if someone has a degree of whatever description - because they have a nice certificate to say so! There's no value to anyone in a PEI awarding some additional letters (in return for an annual fee) just to recognise that. The value comes in the assessment that the engineer not only has that UK&U - from wherever they got it - but is also able to add on that the wider context of how to apply that  UK&U in a useful way appropriate and proportionate to their role.  


    So it's more than, say, whether they are doing innovation - I can think of a case I came across years ago where a PhD engineer was doing fabulous innovative work, but the rest of the company had to run around them to get that work actually applicable to the clients' problems. They were certainly valuable to their company, but I would suggest were not eligible for either CEng or IEng - they did not meet, and had not interest in meeting, the broader aims of UKSPEC in considering their responsibility to their company and their clients (relating to costs, timescales etc), and the application of the work in their clients context. 


    I really like Alasdair's point that there's a test that you need to be able to show all the competences for the relevant standard whenever they arise, even if that isn't very often. And that's what makes all three registration levels useful, employers etc know they're not "just" getting an HNC / HND / BSc / BEng / MEng / PhD engineer.


    Cheers,


    Andy


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  • 0
    Roy Bowdler:

    Many institutions, still as they always have, treat the competences as a “light touch bolt on” to academic qualifications. Only the IET would (occasionally) insult an MEng graduate by suggesting that they were “doing IEng work”. This even extends to someone with a CEng accredited BEng degree...  
           

     


    Which is a completely unhelpful approach - we (employers, assessors, accident investigators etc etc) already know if someone has a degree of whatever description - because they have a nice certificate to say so! There's no value to anyone in a PEI awarding some additional letters (in return for an annual fee) just to recognise that. The value comes in the assessment that the engineer not only has that UK&U - from wherever they got it - but is also able to add on that the wider context of how to apply that  UK&U in a useful way appropriate and proportionate to their role.  


    So it's more than, say, whether they are doing innovation - I can think of a case I came across years ago where a PhD engineer was doing fabulous innovative work, but the rest of the company had to run around them to get that work actually applicable to the clients' problems. They were certainly valuable to their company, but I would suggest were not eligible for either CEng or IEng - they did not meet, and had not interest in meeting, the broader aims of UKSPEC in considering their responsibility to their company and their clients (relating to costs, timescales etc), and the application of the work in their clients context. 


    I really like Alasdair's point that there's a test that you need to be able to show all the competences for the relevant standard whenever they arise, even if that isn't very often. And that's what makes all three registration levels useful, employers etc know they're not "just" getting an HNC / HND / BSc / BEng / MEng / PhD engineer.


    Cheers,


    Andy


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