Phase 4 · Build your evidence
6. Interpersonal Skills and Communication
That you can explain engineering clearly to whoever needs to understand it, in writing and out loud, and that you work well with people.
Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Mentors
That you can explain engineering clearly to whoever needs to understand it, in writing and out loud, and that you work well with people.
Attribute area 6 — the official statements
Institution of Civil Engineers
- Communicate well with others at all levels including effective use of English orally and in writing
- Discuss ideas and plans competently and with confidence — at Chartered level: and communicate new concepts and ideas to technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Demonstrate effective personal and social skills
- Demonstrate awareness of diversity and inclusion — at Chartered level: and proactively manage diversity and inclusion
From Incorporated and Chartered Professional Review Guidance, Institution of Civil Engineers.
What this area is really asking
That you can explain engineering clearly to whoever needs to understand it, in writing and out loud, and that you work well with people.
Where Chartered differs
The CEng extensions move from discussing ideas to communicating new ones to non-technical audiences, and from being aware of diversity and inclusion to managing it actively. This is the one area assessed three times over: by your report, by the interview, and by the written Communication Task.
What strong and weak evidence look like
Worth doing
- A time you changed a non-technical decision-maker's mind, and the argument that did it.
- A difficult message delivered — bad news to a client, a defect admitted, a design withdrawn.
- A public or resident-facing engagement where you had to answer hostile questions.
- Evidence of listening: a decision changed because of what someone else told you.
- A specific inclusion action with an outcome, not a policy you were subject to.
Avoid
- "I have excellent communication skills."
- Listing documents you have written with nothing about who read them or what changed.
- Diversity and inclusion described only as attending training.
- A report full of "we" — it is the single most common reason a reviewer cannot see the candidate.
Fictional example
Explaining to someone who did not want to hear it
Fictional example — flood scheme, public meeting
Weaker
I attended public consultation events and answered questions from local residents about the scheme.
Stronger
At the second consultation a resident asked why we were protecting the far bank and not hers. The technical answer — that her property sat above the 1 in 100 plus climate change level — was correct and useless, because what she was actually asking was whether she had been written off. I got the flood outline up on the screen, showed her where her threshold sat relative to it, and was straight that the modelling had uncertainty in it and that her risk was low but not zero. She stayed to the end. I learned that the answer to a technical question is not always a technical answer.
Why — It shows the candidate noticing the gap between the question asked and the question meant. That is the interpersonal part of the attribute, and it is far more convincing than a claim to have excellent communication skills.
Questions to ask yourself
Who did not understand, and what did I do about it?
Communication evidence needs an audience with a gap in it.
What is the hardest thing I have had to tell someone at work?
Difficult messages carry more weight than routine reporting.
Where in my report have I written 'we' when I meant 'I'?
This single edit does more for most reports than any other.
What have I done about inclusion that had an effect?
The CEng extension says proactively manage. Awareness alone is the IEng statement.
The same area, in different kinds of work
| Setting | What the evidence tends to look like |
|---|---|
| Public engagement | Explaining a flood scheme to residents who did not want it, and answering the objection you had not prepared for. |
| Design office | Writing a technical note that stopped an argument, because it set out the options and the recommendation clearly. |
| Client-side | Translating a technical risk into a board-level decision with a clear recommendation and a stated consequence. |
| Site | Briefing a gang on a change of method so that it was actually followed, not just issued. |
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.
Fictional example
The report that says 'we'
Fictional example — the same paragraph, edited
Weaker
We reviewed the options and we decided that the bored pile solution was the most appropriate. We presented our recommendation to the client and it was accepted.
Stronger
I reviewed the three foundation options against ground risk, programme and noise, and recommended bored piles because the driven option would have breached the vibration limit at the listed wall 8 m away. I presented that recommendation to the client myself, and had to defend the extra £45,000 against a programme saving they had been promised by someone else.
Why — The edit is almost mechanical — 'we' becomes 'I', and the reason and the difficulty are added — and it changes what a reviewer can see. This single change does more for most reports than any other. It is not immodesty; the report is the only evidence reviewers have of what you did.
An evidence-planning exercise
4 items · saved in this browser only
Written for a notebook rather than a submission. Anything you cannot answer is a development action, not a writing problem.
How interviewers tend to approach this area
- The Communication Task itself, which assesses knowledge and relevance, use of English, and clarity and presentation.
- The presentation, and how you handle questions during it.
- Asking you to explain a technical part of your project as if the reviewer were not an engineer.
- Asking about a disagreement and how you resolved it.
There is a large bank of original practice questions in the question bank, filterable by area and by level.
Related pages and tools
- AttributesWhat ICE assesses, how the Incorporated and Chartered expectations differ, and how to read the standard without drowning in it.
- Evidence qualityThe difference between being present, contributing and being responsible — and how to make your own competence visible.
- Evidence matrixA private record of your projects, your responsibilities and your decisions, mapped against the seven attribute areas.
- Gap analysisFind the areas where your evidence is thin, and turn each one into a development action you can actually ask for.
- Question bankOriginal practice questions across all seven areas and both levels, each with what it is testing and what a strong answer contains.
- 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.