To gain professional registration via the IET assessment process, you need to have demonstrated competence to the standards set out in UK-SPEC. A professional engineer cannot be competent without having substantial knowledge and understanding to underpin their activities.
Engineering Council allows The IET and some other professional institutions to accredit programmes of study. Accredited qualifications are considered to be suitable evidence of fundamental underpinning knowledge and the holders of such qualifications are given advantageous treatment in the assessment process.
Most accredited bachelors degrees hold the status of “partially meeting” the CEng knowledge benchmark., subject to “further learning to masters level”. Such a degrees are also treated as fully meeting the IEng knowledge benchmark. There are also some specifically IEng accredited bachelors degrees, designed to be less theoretical and more focussed on applications of technology, sadly the demand for accreditation of these excellent programmes has declined.
Adil, in the circumstances you describe you will be assessed on an individual basis. I assume that you gained 120M level credits for the award of the diploma, but decided not to continue with the dissertation to gain the full MSc. You should not apply for professional registration as either IEng or CEng, until the professional engineers supervising your scheme agree that you have demonstrated the necessary competence. Please note that competence is demonstrated by achievement not the passage of time. Since you have demonstrated substantial “further learning to masters level”, you have nothing to worry about in respect of your qualifications. It could be worthwhile to consider completing the MSc in due course for its own benefits irrespective of your CEng aspirations.
For anyone in a similar situation; i.e. early career and aspiring to CEng but with only a partially accredited degree, the IET will take a definitive view about whether “further learning” has been met when you apply for registration. We don’t require that the further learning has taken place in an academic situation, but evidence of having gained additional M level credits is very helpful and a relevant masters or even doctorate ideal. If the aim is to achieve registration as “quickly as possible” then strong qualifications become more important in the mix, since experiential learning hasn’t had the time to develop.
I have answered in more detail because this is quite a commonly asked question. So for the benefit of other readers -
If you have fully accredited qualifications, then you will be considered “Standard Route” under Engineering Council rules.
Degree accreditation can be checked via the Engineering Council website. Some overseas qualifications are also treated as accredited by treaty.
Being “standard route” offers a slight advantage in the IET assessment process, which evaluates your professional competence.
If you do not hold qualifications that are fully accredited, then you are “Individual Route” and assessed on a case by case basis.
The IET currently registers more engineers via the Individual Route than the Standard Route.
The variety of successful individual route engineers is enormous. For example, newly awarded Chartered Engineers range from early career Engineers in their first substantive role to CEOs. The age range is anywhere from 25-70. The formal qualifications held range from Doctorates to Ordinary National Certificates, or even very rarely, no formal qualifications at all.
All registrations awarded by the IET require proven professional practice over a reasonable time. Therefore, we are always evaluating a blend of achievement plus experiential and formal learning. The IET has a large resource of experienced volunteer assessors with a wide range of experience, who do a lot more than just “count qualifications”.
