Date: July 22, 2019

In the engineering field, some companies and/or governments require employees to get licensure or registration. The end result of such process is the title "Chartered Engineer" (CEng) in the United Kingdom or "Professional Engineer" (P.E.) in the United States or equivalent depending on which country you are in.

In the United Kingdom, Chartered Engineer (CEng) is an engineer registered with the Engineering Council, the UK regulatory body for the engineering profession.

In the United States, Professional Engineer (P.E.) is an engineer registered with the Registration Board of that state, say New York. Getting P.E. in one state does not mean you are registered in another state.

Since I live in Hong Kong, I chose to pursue the Chartered Engineer (CEng) title of the UK. Does Hong Kong have such title? Yes, indeed and it's being a Member of The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (MHKIE). I eventually apply for the MHKIE title later on.

When I studied engineering during college in the United States, I already knew there is such a path. Having knowing that in the US, each state requires its own registration process, I thought to myself, forget that, the P.E. title is not nationwide!

Therefore, after college moving back to Hong Kong, I realized The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) has a similar registration process. Yet I pursued the UK CEng title instead of the Hong Kong MHKIE title. Why? Simply put, the UK CEng has a very clear guideline or requirement compared to Hong Kong MHKIE.

Apart from the requirements, for me personally, by attaining such "chartered" status, I believe I would have reached a certain level of leadership professionally.

The requirements for Chartered Engineer (CEng) are documented in the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC). This document covers both academic and professional requirements.

The major areas of the UK-SPEC for CEng include:

• A - Knowledge and understanding
• B - Design, development and solving engineering problems
• C - Responsibility, management and leadership
• D - Communication and interpersonal skills
• E - Professional commitment

First you need to join a professional engineering institution that the Engineering Council recognizes. For me, I joined the British Computer Society (BCS). There are 5 major steps:

1. Application submission & application fee payment
2. Assessor initial review
3. Professional review interview (PRI)
4. Decision from the Panel
5. Registration with Engineering Council if successful

The application has the following:

• Application form with supporter's contact information
• CV
• Experience statement
• Record of continuing professional development (CPD)
• Copy of academic qualification(s)

The supporter, usually your supervisor or manager, is someone who can validate your experience for the immediate past (one) year. You may have more than one supporter. Your supporter(s) will also need to submit a supporter evaluation later on similar to your experience statement. Your supporter(s) do not necessarily need to be "chartered" or affiliated with a professional engineering institution.

The experience statement is for you to describe how you meet the requirements set out in the UK-SPEC.

Other professional engineering institutions should have a similar registration process. The BCS CEng page can be found here.

Once the application is submitted and paid, the assessment has 3 stages:

1. Initial review of application (CV review and peer assessment)
2. Detail review of application (assessment of knowledge and experience)
3. Interview

Stage 1 also determines your route of assessment (accredited or experiential).

Accredited

• Your academic qualification(s) are recognized by the Engineering Council
• Your CV and experience statement may be used to further evaluate your core competence

Experiential

• Your academic qualification(s) are NOT recognized by the Engineering Council
• Your CV and experience statement together do demonstrate sufficient evidence of core competence

I prepared my application for about like 2 or 3 months, maybe longer. The hardest part was the experience statement, thinking of examples to elaborate in detail. Furthermore, the CV needed to clearly show I have progressive responsibilities in my experience as well as leadership/ management responsibilities in my current job.

The exact dates of my CEng application process were as follow:

Regarding the application fee payment, BCS required me to call their customer service hotline to make payment. There was no online payment so I had to call long distance.

Regarding the supporter evaluation, the institution directly contacts your supporter. Yet you will know when that is. What your supporter(s) write in the evaluation and your application's experience statement should align. Remember your supporter meant to reinforce your experience against your submitted application. Your supporter will need to reply the institution directly when evaluation is completed.

Regarding the professional review interview (PRI), the online meeting software GoToMeeting was used.

Since I did the PRI twice, I originally thought all areas would be asked again (a full assessment). But to my surprise only areas with insufficient data were asked. This made the second PRI shorter.