It depends on what sort of move the person wants to make.

To take an example, my skill set (as a Systems Engineer) applies across multiple different engineering domains. I started my career in Defense, worked in Automotive for a while and now work in the Civil domain. Conceivably I could also go work in IT, or manufacturing or many other areas. I'm not changing my skill set, just where I use them.

You may have someone who works in a specific domain, but wants to develop to take on a different role. Conceivable, many of us do this be moving from engineering roles into leadership and management roles as our careers progress.

But you could also have someone who completely wants to change things up. The engineer that wants to become a teacher or vice versa.

For moving into engineering, ultimately you often need to be able to demonstrate potential competency. Competency in this way can be both knowledge and skills. If there is a competency system, you can assess yourself against it. But those don't exist in all cases. Note that the UK-SPEC/Engineering Council competencies are far too general to be really helpful here. Perhaps unless you are assessing towards a project manager/program manager type role. Both INCOSE and the BCS have a detailed competency model. Other institutions may have their own as well.

As Andy said, tools like LinkedIn can be helpful. You can find people doing a similar role that you aspire to and look at their backgrounds. You can also look at advertised jobs and see what they say (although most job posts are a wish list). I treat all agencies with a very long pole - most don't really understand my field and a good 50% have clearly done a keyword search and not looked at my profile. If I'm looking for a new role, I'm going to use my network - but that's because I have one.

i know some people who are trying to get into some aspect of software development from a non-software background. The issue here is both the availability of roles and demonstrating that they have the competencies in the right area. At this point, I could switch this discussion revolving around the lack of diversity in engineering is somewhat down to the lack of flexibility and the fact coming back into engineering can be very difficult unless there is a supportive employer that is prepared to be flexible.

It depends on what sort of move the person wants to make.

To take an example, my skill set (as a Systems Engineer) applies across multiple different engineering domains. I started my career in Defense, worked in Automotive for a while and now work in the Civil domain. Conceivably I could also go work in IT, or manufacturing or many other areas. I'm not changing my skill set, just where I use them.

You may have someone who works in a specific domain, but wants to develop to take on a different role. Conceivable, many of us do this be moving from engineering roles into leadership and management roles as our careers progress.

But you could also have someone who completely wants to change things up. The engineer that wants to become a teacher or vice versa.

For moving into engineering, ultimately you often need to be able to demonstrate potential competency. Competency in this way can be both knowledge and skills. If there is a competency system, you can assess yourself against it. But those don't exist in all cases. Note that the UK-SPEC/Engineering Council competencies are far too general to be really helpful here. Perhaps unless you are assessing towards a project manager/program manager type role. Both INCOSE and the BCS have a detailed competency model. Other institutions may have their own as well.

As Andy said, tools like LinkedIn can be helpful. You can find people doing a similar role that you aspire to and look at their backgrounds. You can also look at advertised jobs and see what they say (although most job posts are a wish list). I treat all agencies with a very long pole - most don't really understand my field and a good 50% have clearly done a keyword search and not looked at my profile. If I'm looking for a new role, I'm going to use my network - but that's because I have one.

i know some people who are trying to get into some aspect of software development from a non-software background. The issue here is both the availability of roles and demonstrating that they have the competencies in the right area. At this point, I could switch this discussion revolving around the lack of diversity in engineering is somewhat down to the lack of flexibility and the fact coming back into engineering can be very difficult unless there is a supportive employer that is prepared to be flexible.

Mark Tickner said:

If there is a competency system, you can assess yourself against it. But those don't exist in all cases.

Yes that's an excellent point. I think for my whole career I've seen the question asked "what skills / qualifications / experience do I need to get into xyz?", and once I'd found myself on the recruitment side of the fence I realised that for many (most?) professional engineering roles (as opposed to skilled roles) there's no actual answer - it's so dependant on what the "hole" in the existing team is, and whether it's a big or small company, and what industry it's in, and etc etc etc. Including the fact that for some employers a brand new certificate in relevant training is useful as it shows interest and willingness to learn even without prior experience, for others they only want to see actual experience (and don't care about qualifications) as they need someone who can hit the ground running. I've employed both into the same team at different times depending on the opportunity that arises.

I think the best advice I can give any candidate on competency is to really read each individual job description carefully, and try to be realistic - don't try to blag your way in (if that's detected it'll be an instant rejection), but equally do a bit of research if necessary so you can propose how you could credibly gain skills / knowledge that's being asked for which you don't have. It might not work if they definitely need those skills from day one, but it will give you the best chance. It is surprising how many candidates I've seen over the years who've read the words in the job description without thinking them through, often because they're feeling guilty about potentially not meeting the requirements so over compensating. It doesn't help that a job description may have a list of 10-15 competences, but there may be only one or two which are real deal breakers, it's an art to pick those out so you don't try showing a competence which you don't have and which they're not really interested in anyway. This is where the old advice about researching the company first comes in, if you can guess what the job actually involves you might be able to spot what competences they'll particularly need. But you need to try to find the actual part of the business you're working with - for the last 30ish years I've worked with (very) multidisciplinary companies, and it's interesting how many candidates have looked at the global company website and then tried to sell us skills which our local team have no interest in...

A separate point is being realistic about salary etc expectations. If you are changing role or industry you are often not going to be as immediately valuable to a new employer as you are to your present employer. Yes, you may bring in new skills or knowledge, but that may not fully compensate for the fact that - in the simplest case - you will not immediately be as effective in delivering the work as the person you're replacing. Some people are realistic that a pay cut now gives an opportunity for a much better role in a year or two's time. Some aren't, and really struggle to find anything. Sometimes the point is level of seniority rather than pay, but the same principle applies. I often find this in ex-forces staff - the fact that they may have previously held a position of responsibility can allow them to rise rapidly up the ladder, but there may need to be a bit of pride swallowing and going to a lower rung to start with while they get the hang of the different ways to add value in the outside world. (My personal extreme was taking a 20% pay cut and moving from a rather serious design lead position to a standard design engineer role, six years later I was R&D manager in that completely different industry. And I'm one of the least ambitious people you'll meet, I applied for a promotion in 1983 which I didn't get, I've never applied for one since!) An odd part of this can be that you may well get quizzed hard at interview as to why you are willing to take a pay cut, the point is that the prospective employer will want to be confident that you're not going to regret it and return to your old role (it's a real risk, I've had that happen with applicants a few times). You will need to show genuine interest in the new field, and ideally a bit of a (credible) plan for how you want to make your way in it.

P.S. Apologies that at the start I separated "professional" and "skilled", yes of course I agree that skilled roles are professional, hopefully people will know what I mean. I couldn't think of another way of putting it.