Am I Eligible for CEng Without a Master’s? – 16 Years in Wastewater Sector and 13 Years post degree experience

it's about the job you do, not the pieces of paper you hold. somebody better informed than me will have the statistics, but more people get CEng without MEng than with it. colleagues of mine have achieved CEng with no formal qualification higher than an HNC

find a Professional Registration Advisor and have a chat with them

Thank you Dave

Hi Krishnaduthsing. I just wanted to echo Dave's comment about academics Vs CEng. I myself haven't got a Masters (a BSc) - however I achieved CEng. It's about demonstrating beyond doubt that you've met the standards set out in the UK-SPEC.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience — it’s really encouraging to hear that you achieved CEng with a BSc. That gives me confidence moving forward.

Just to clarify, in order to fill the academic gap between my degree and a Master's level, should I submit a separate technical report alongside my Employment History report in the career manager? I’d really appreciate your thoughts on that.

Hi,

No you don't need to. All you need to show is what you are doing now and your career history that got you there. What you submit is exactly the same whether you are applying with a Masters or with no qualifications at all.

Just to support the comments above, as a PRA I have hardly ever seen anyone apply with a Masters. And to emphasise Dave's point, I strongly suggest you do contact a PRA (not me unfortunately as I'm full up with applicants!) as we can can explain how you show your experience in your application.  www.theiet.org/.../find-a-professional-registration-advisor

Thanks,

Andy 

P.S. There's an important general guidance point here for all applicants: Do NOT provide more than 5 pages of application (Career History). Any application from any background can fit into those 5 pages. If the assessors want to see more they will ask for it after they've read those pages. It needs to be more than a 2 page CV, but it absolutely mustn't be a 20 page thesis - which we do often see in draft applications. 

There is a bit of an art to getting the information the assessors want to see into those 5 pages, which is where PRAs can help.

The way I often explain it to applicants is like this: if any of us met another professional engineer at a social event, and they described in a few minutes what they did, we would usually have a pretty good idea of what level in their organisation they were and what they were actually responsible for - they wouldn't need to show us piles of drawings and reports for us to judge that. OK, in this process that conversation needs to be a bit more detailed to be sure that they are showing the level of professionalism that we would want to see at that level, but it is still that kind of approach.

What it absolutely isn't is a University-style assessment of your knowledge, your employers are presumably already satisfied about that. CEng (and IENG and EngTech) are more about showing professionalism in your approach - how you apply that knowledge and understanding as appropriate to the level you are applying for.

Thank you Andy for the clarification and the helpful analogy — it really puts things into perspective.

May I ask whether it's acceptable to include any supporting materials such as photographs, calculations, or drawings in an appendix to illustrate aspects of my work, or is it best to avoid attachments altogether unless specifically requested by the assessors?

I appreciate your guidance on maintaining focus and keeping the application concise.

Hi,

No, they definitely do not want to see supporting drawings etc. The focus of the application is how you went about your work, not about what you did.

You might want to use photos or similar in your interview presentation, in fact it is often a good idea to to help explain your work. But not in your application.

The information in your application is just 5 pages of text, plus a copy of your degree certificate, and (optionally but highly recommended) a very very brief development action plan (what skills you plan to develop over the next 1-2 years). The assessors are very busy people and won't spend time looking at anything else!

Thanks,

Andy 

Hi Andy,

Thank you very much for the clarification — that’s really helpful.

I’ll make sure to keep the application focused strictly on the written content and concentrate on demonstrating how I approached my work.

To add to the confirmation, even if a little late, I gained my CEng without any formal engineering training. I graduated with a Batchelors in chemistry and started working as a bench chemist before translating into more engineering based work. If you can demonstrate that you are doing high quality engineering work and can meet the competencies in UK-SPEC then you're good. 

Good luck with your application.