In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with ICE before applying.
Read ICE's requirement on the attribute page, then use the examples and self-assessment to examine evidence from your own work.
Questions for checking your evidence
Use these prompts to review technical judgement in your own work. They are preparation advice; the official attribute statements define the requirements.
- Which technical judgements did you make yourself?
- Why was the answer appropriate?
- How did you check the work?
- What did you do when guidance did not settle the question?
- What were the implications for construction, operation and maintenance?
Discuss any point you cannot yet explain with your mentor and identify the experience or record needed.
Participation, contribution, responsibility
| Situation | How it reads in this area |
|---|---|
| Participation | “I worked on the foundation design for a three-storey office building.” |
| Contribution | “I ran the settlement analysis that showed pad foundations would not work, and passed it to the lead engineer.” |
| Responsibility | “I concluded pads would not work on a 30 mm differential against a 15 mm frame tolerance, and specified a piled solution. That was mine up to the point it changed the substructure cost.” |
Illustrative and fictional. The most useful thing you can do with your own draft is read it paragraph by paragraph and decide which of the three each one evidences. Participation is worth very little on its own.
Describing activity, and demonstrating competence
Fictional: engineering
I carried out the structural design of the retaining wall in accordance with BS EN 1997-1, including stability, bearing and settlement checks.
The wall sat 4 m from a Victorian sewer with no as-built records. I could not verify the bearing pressure assumption at the sewer end, so rather than assume it I specified a trial pit before the design was fixed, and it found made ground 1.5 m deeper than the SI suggested. I moved the toe to keep the bearing outside the sewer's zone of influence.
The first describes a competent day's work and could be written by anyone who did that job. The second contains an uncertainty the candidate identified, a decision to resolve rather than assume it, and a design change that followed. Same wall.
What changes with the grade
At Incorporated level. You contribute to solutions and select from established techniques with skill, and you exercise sound independent judgement within them. Evidence a decision the codes did not settle for you.
At Chartered level. ICE adds the definition of the problem itself (identifying requirements, risks and opportunities) and undertaking the solution rather than contributing to somebody else's. It also expects engagement in bringing something new or improved into use. That does not mean inventing technology: introducing a method that was new to your organisation, and being the person who established whether it was sound, counts.
How evidence in this area usually fails to land
The generic statement
A claim written at a level of generality that fits thousands of engineers. It is usually true, and it evidences nothing, because nothing in it is attached to this candidate's work.
How it sounds out loud. Fluent, confident, and it fills thirty seconds without saying anything. Reviewers usually respond by asking for an example, and the candidate who has been speaking generally often does not have one ready.
The repair. Take the general claim and attach it to one occasion: a date, a project, a decision.
Could another engineer put their name on this sentence unchanged?
Describing the project instead of yourself
The submission reads as a project description. Scope, value, programme and technical detail are all present; the candidate appears only as a narrator.
How it sounds out loud. The candidate answers 'tell me about your role' by describing the scheme, and keeps describing it. Reviewers interrupt, which unsettles candidates who expected to give a prepared overview.
The repair. Cut the project description to the minimum a reader needs to understand the problem you faced.
Count the sentences before the first 'I' that is followed by a decision.
'We' everywhere
An account written entirely as 'we' can leave your contribution unclear, particularly when describing decisions. In spoken practice, listen for whether the answer identifies what you did. Keep 'we' for joint work and explain your own part accurately.
Search the draft for 'we'. At each one, could a reader still tell what you did?
The job-description answer
Duties listed as responsibilities. It reads like a role specification, in the present tense of a permanent state rather than the past tense of things that happened.
How it sounds out loud. Recognisable by its tense and rhythm: 'I was responsible for managing the site team, liaising with the client, and ensuring compliance with…'. It sounds like a CV read aloud.
The repair. Convert each duty into one occasion where you discharged it and something turned on it.
Does this describe what you were employed to do, or what you did?
Standards listed, judgement absent
Codes, standards and procedures named as evidence of competence, without any account of how they were applied or what they required the candidate to decide.
How it sounds out loud. Produces the most uncomfortable follow-ups in the interview, because a candidate who has quoted a clause is fairly asked what it is for. Reviewers are rarely trying to catch anyone out; they are checking that the citation was understood.
The repair. For each standard named, add the sentence explaining why it governed this case.
Does the standard appear as a name, or as something you had to apply?
Borrowed responsibility
An account may attribute a team’s or senior colleague’s decision to the candidate. Ask who owned the decision and what the candidate contributed. Record the analysis, option or risk they were responsible for, with the limits of their authority.
Would your sponsor, reading this sentence, recognise it as yours?
No outcome
The account stops at the action and omits the result. Add what happened, using a relevant measure such as programme, cost, risk, carbon, defects or service performance.
Does the account stop at the decision, or at the drawing being issued?
The best evidence is years old
The most substantial examples come from a role the candidate left several years ago, with recent work covered thinly or not at all.
How it sounds out loud. The candidate is animated about the older project and noticeably flatter about current work. The contrast is audible and reviewers notice it.
The repair. Lead with current work and use the older example for the specific thing only it shows.
Where does your strongest example sit on your CV?
Attendance offered as contribution
Being present at meetings, reviews, workshops or site visits described as though presence were participation, and participation were contribution.
How it sounds out loud. 'I attended the design team meetings': usually offered when a candidate is short of material for an area.
The repair. Find the one meeting where you said something that changed the outcome, and write about that meeting.
Look for verbs of presence: attended, joined, sat on, was part of.
Compliance offered as competence
Evidence built around having complied (with procedures, standards, method statements, quality systems) rather than around what the candidate decided.
How it sounds out loud. Safe, procedural answers that never quite reach a decision. Reviewers tend to push harder, which candidates can experience as hostility when it is a search for the evidence.
The repair. Find where the procedure ran out, was wrong, or did not fit, and write about that.
Does the sentence say you followed something, or that you judged something?
Jargon covering uncertainty
Technical vocabulary, acronyms and process language used at a density that obscures rather than conveys: often heaviest exactly where the candidate is least sure.
How it sounds out loud. Fluent and impenetrable. Reviewers from a different discipline will ask for it in plain terms, and the answer reveals whether the understanding was there.
The repair. Give the plain-terms version first, then the technical one.
Could you explain that sentence to a competent engineer from another discipline?
The rehearsed answer
Answers prepared as text and delivered as text. They are usually well-constructed and they stop dead at the first question that was not anticipated.
How it sounds out loud. Recognisable by rhythm and by tense: the delivery is smoother than the surrounding conversation, and the candidate is visibly returning to a start point when interrupted.
The repair. Prepare evidence, not wording: for each example know the decision, the alternative, the outcome, the reflection and the supporting document.
Are you learning sentences, or knowing your evidence?
Polished prose with nothing underneath
A submission that has been through several drafts of language while the underlying evidence has not changed. It reads professionally and contains no decisions.
How it sounds out loud. The gap between the quality of the document and the quality of the answers is itself a signal, and an uncomfortable one.
The repair. Before editing, audit: mark every paragraph as participation, contribution or decision. If most are not decisions, editing is the wrong task.
Has the writing been improved, or the evidence?
Every example a success
A submission in which every decision was vindicated, every project delivered and every judgement correct.
How it sounds out loud. The question 'tell me about something that went wrong' is close to universal, and a candidate with no prepared answer to it will produce either a non-answer or a disguised boast.
The repair. Choose one genuine failure, and prepare it as carefully as your best example.
Is there anything in the submission that did not work?
An answer that fits several attributes and proves none
A broad account touching engineering, management, commercial and safety aspects at once, at a level of detail too shallow for any of them to be evidenced.
How it sounds out loud. The answer wanders. It sounds comprehensive and leaves the reviewer unsure what was just demonstrated, so they ask a narrowing question the candidate has not prepared.
The repair. Decide what each example is primarily for, and write it for that.
If you had to file this example under exactly one area, could you?
Questions to ask yourself
- You have described the design. What part of it was yours?
Am I reading about this candidate, or about their project?
- Who would have made that decision if you had been on leave that week?
Am I reading about this candidate, or about their project?
- What could you approve without asking anyone?
Was this person accountable for something, or near something?
- What was the largest decision you took alone?
Was this person accountable for something, or near something?
- 'Involved in': tell me what you did.
Did they take part, add something, or decide?
- What did you contribute that nobody else did?
Did they take part, add something, or decide?
- You have said 'we' four times in that answer. Which part was yours?
Is 'we' being used naturally, or to hide who did what?
- How many people were in that 'we'?
Is 'we' being used naturally, or to hide who did what?
- What made that difficult?
Did this require professional judgement, or just care and effort?
- Why could you not simply follow the standard detail?
Did this require professional judgement, or just care and effort?
- Why that value?
Do they know why that was done, or only that it was?
- What is that clause protecting against?
Do they know why that was done, or only that it was?
- What else did you consider?
Was there a real choice, and did they make it?
- Why did you reject that?
Was there a real choice, and did they make it?
- What was the biggest risk you were carrying?
Do they know what they did not know?
- What did you not know when you made that decision?
Do they know what they did not know?
- What happened in the end?
What happened, and did it matter?
- How do you know it saved that much?
What happened, and did it matter?
- What would you do differently?
Have they learned anything, and can they say so without flinching?
- What is the biggest mistake you have made professionally?
Have they learned anything, and can they say so without flinching?
- What was the actual figure?
Could I check any of this?
- Which drawing was that?
Could I check any of this?
- Give me another example of that, from a different project.
Is this how they work, or the one time it happened?
- Is that how you normally approach it, or was that occasion unusual?
Is this how they work, or the one time it happened?
- Talk me through that in more detail.
If I pull this thread, does the answer hold?
- You wrote that you led the design. What does 'led' mean here?
If I pull this thread, does the answer hold?
- What are you working on at the moment?
Is this current, and is it at the level being applied for?
- That was five years ago. What have you done since that is comparable?
Is this current, and is it at the level being applied for?
- How long had you been qualified when you did that?
Does this add up?
- That is a large saving on a scheme that size. How was it calculated?
Does this add up?
Where honest improvement stops
Alternatives and rejected options
Describe the alternatives you considered and why you rejected them. If there was no choice, say so and demonstrate judgement through another part of the work.
Was the problem demanding enough?
Describe the difficulty accurately. If the example gives little evidence of the required competence, choose another or seek further experience before applying.
Honest reflection
Do not manufacture a photogenic mistake, and do not confess to something that was not your responsibility in order to look reflective. Both read as performance. A small, true, specific lesson beats a large invented one every time.
Outcome, and why it mattered
Never invent or inflate a figure. An unsupported number is the easiest thing in a submission to test and the hardest to recover from, because it puts every other number you have written in doubt. If you no longer have the data, say what you can substantiate.
Participation, contribution, or decision
Describe participation accurately. If you did not make the decision, explain your contribution and what you learned, or choose another example to demonstrate responsibility.
Meaningful personal responsibility
State your authority accurately. Where your responsibility was narrow, explain the depth of the work within it. Sponsors countersign the account, and reviewers can question it.
A self-assessment you can fail
These are not things to tick because they sound right. Answer each one out loud. Anything you cannot answer is either a writing problem or a development gap, and those need completely different responses.
Official sources
Selected publisher pages were rechecked in September 2026. Other source records were last checked in July 2026. Open the latest official document before relying on a requirement.