Phase 5 · Write and submit
Appendices
Choosing evidence that shows your involvement, staying within the limits, and making it legible.
Who this is for:Candidates at any stage
Appendices exist to show reviewers your actual work. They are also the most common place for candidates to lose marks quietly — by including material that does not show their involvement.
The limits and the rules
Institution of Civil Engineers
- Supporting documentation such as numerical analyses, cost data, drawings or other relevant evidence from your work should be included as appendices to support the content in your report.
- Appendices are not included in the word count.
- Your appendices should include no more than 3 sides of A3 and 12 sides of A4.
- Include hyperlinks linking the appendices with the relevant text in the main body of the report, and back — and they should not link to documents outside your application.
- Use colour where necessary — for example, images and drawings.
- CPD records are not included within the appendix page limits.
- Appendices — A3 sides
- 3sides of A3
- Appendices — A4 sides
- 12sides of A4CPD records sit outside this limit.
- Application file size
- 15MB, one PDFA single PDF. Convert documents to PDF electronically rather than scanning where you can, and check it reads in black and white.
From Incorporated and Chartered Professional Review Guidance, Institution of Civil Engineers.
The test for including something
One question: does this show what I did?
A general arrangement drawing produced by someone else, of a structure you worked on, shows that the structure exists. A marked-up extract of the same drawing showing the detail you changed, with your annotation of why, shows what you did.
That distinction decides most appendix selections. Reviewers will ask you about anything in the appendices, and being asked to talk through a calculation you did not do is an uncomfortable fifteen minutes.
Annotation is what makes it evidence
Almost every appendix benefits from a short annotation: what this is, what your involvement was, and what to look at. Two lines. Without it, a reviewer sees a drawing; with it, they see a decision.
What tends to work
| Type | Works when | Does not work when |
|---|---|---|
| Calculations | It is your calculation, extracted to the page that contains the judgement, with your annotation of the assumption that mattered. | It is twelve pages of software output with no indication of what you decided. |
| Drawings | Marked up to show your change, your comment, or the detail you developed. | A full GA at A3 that shows the scheme rather than your contribution. |
| Programmes | Extracted to the part you built or the decision point you managed, with a note of what changed and why. | A full project programme, unreadable at A4. |
| Risk material | A designer's risk register entry you wrote, or a risk assessment you changed, with the before and after. | The project risk register, with your name nowhere in it. |
| Commercial evidence | A cost forecast you produced, or a change assessment you wrote — anonymised or redacted as needed. | Anything you were not authorised to share. |
| Photographs | Showing something specific you are describing — a defect, a temporary works arrangement, a completed detail. | General site photography, or anything revealing a security-sensitive location. |
Appendix check
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Related pages and tools
- The report5,000 words in which two strangers have to see your competence: what ICE asks for, how to structure it, and how to edit it.
- Security-sensitive workHow to evidence competence from work you cannot fully describe, without compromising the work or your evidence.
- Plagiarism and AIWhat help is legitimate, what is not, and where ICE draws the line — in the submission and in the review itself.
- Submission checkThe last pass before you upload, covering the things that get applications returned.