In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with ICE before applying.
Show how you apply your knowledge of hazards and legal duties to manage risk in your work. Explain the decisions that improved safety and your own responsibility for them.
Safety in your work
Explain the relevant law and hazards, how you managed risk and what your decisions changed for people's safety.
The Chartered extension
The final clause adds a leadership requirement at CEng. Evidence might include stopping unsafe practice, improving a standard or influencing how others manage safety.
What strong and weak evidence look like
Look for
- A hazard you designed out, and what the alternative would have cost or required.
- A risk assessment where your input changed the method, with the before and after.
- A time you stopped work, or refused to sign something, and what happened next.
- Evidence you understand your duties under the CDM Regulations in the role you held.
- A near miss or incident you were involved in, honestly told, and what changed as a result.
- Health and wellbeing treated as seriously as physical safety.
Watch for
- Listing the courses you have attended.
- "Safety is our number one priority" with no decision behind it.
- Describing the company's safety system rather than your own actions within it.
- Naming CDM without being able to say which duty holder you were.
- No current formal health, safety and welfare training in the CPD record: ICE requires it.
Designing out a hazard, honestly
Fictional example: water, designer
I applied the principles of prevention and eliminated hazards where possible in accordance with the CDM Regulations.
The original layout put the actuated valve at 3.4 m above the chamber floor, which meant a man-riding platform or a permanent ladder and cage for every maintenance visit. I moved the valve to a mezzanine at 1.6 m and extended the spindle, which cost about £2,800 in extra pipework and removed working at height from a task the client does four times a year. What I could not remove was the confined-space entry — the chamber still needs it — so I recorded that on the designer's risk register with the reason, rather than pretending the design was hazard-free.
It names the hazard, the change, the cost, the benefit over the asset's life, and (importantly) what could not be removed and why. Reviewers are suspicious of candidates whose designs apparently eliminated every risk.
Questions to ask yourself
- Which duty holder was I, on this project?
CDM roles are specific. Reviewers regularly ask, and a vague answer undermines the whole area.
- What hazard is still there because of a decision I made?
Residual risk is where honest safety evidence lives. Designers who claim to have eliminated everything invite hard questions.
- When did I raise something unpopular?
The leadership extension needs a moment where safety cost you something.
- Is my health and safety training current?
ICE requires current formal training in the CPD record. It is one of the most common and most avoidable submission gaps.
The same area, in different kinds of work
| Setting | What the evidence tends to look like |
|---|---|
| Designer | Changing a detail so it could be built without working at height, and recording the residual risk that remained. |
| Site | Rewriting a method statement that looked compliant on paper but did not match how the work would really be done. |
| Client | Setting the pre-construction information properly so the risk was managed before anyone priced the job. |
| Operations | Designing for the maintainer — access, isolation, confined spaces — rather than only for the builder. |
Illustrative. The area is generic by design: ICE says the attributes can be achieved in a range of ways by anyone working as a civil or infrastructure engineer.
Raising something unpopular
Fictional example: contractor, site engineer
I promoted a positive safety culture on site and always challenged unsafe behaviour.
The method statement for the deck pour had the pump line running over a live footway with a taped barrier under it. It had been signed off, it was the way the previous three pours had been done, and we were on the critical path. I stopped it. It cost us half a shift while we rerouted the line and got a proper protection deck up. The site manager was not pleased at the time; he raised it himself as a lesson learned at the next monthly review, which mattered more than my raising it would have.
Describe a specific occasion when you challenged unsafe behaviour, including the action you took and its consequences.
An evidence-planning exercise
Written for a notebook rather than a submission. Anything you cannot answer is a development action, not a writing problem.
Questions for interview practice
Prepare to discuss hazards and the action you took, unsafe work on another site, your CDM duties and current legislation. Include welfare and mental health in the discussion.
Use the original question bank to practise by attribute area and level.
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.