Phase 3 · Complete your IPD
Career Appraisal — who it is for
Who the Career Appraisal suits, who should use a different route, and what must be settled before you start.
Who this is for:Candidates at any stage
The Career Appraisal has a specific place in the system. Using it when another route applies wastes months, and ICE names several situations where a different route is the right one.
The two requirements, and the exclusions
Institution of Civil Engineers
- To apply you must have the required academic qualifications (the educational base) and enough work experience to demonstrate how you have achieved the attributes for IEng MICE or CEng MICE.
- If you are already IEng MICE and want to progress, you can use the Career Appraisal to top up your IPD for the progressive route, provided you have the required educational base.
- You cannot apply while undertaking an ICE Training Agreement, while registered on IPD Online for mentor-supported training, or while on HKIE Training Scheme A in the civil or geotechnical discipline. Contact career.appraisals@ice.org.uk.
- If you hold no academic qualifications, make a stage 1 Technical Report Route application instead.
- If you are already professionally qualified, you may be eligible for a recognition route or be exempt — contact erp@ice.org.uk with your academic and professional qualification details.
- If you have completed HKIE Training Scheme A in the civil or geotechnical discipline and hold a qualification recognised for the CEng educational base, apply directly for Chartered Professional Review.
- EngTech MICE applicants do not need a Career Appraisal.
From Career Appraisal Guidance, Institution of Civil Engineers.
Who it genuinely suits
Four situations account for most successful Career Appraisals.
The engineer who never joined a scheme. Ten or fifteen years of good work, an employer that was never an Approved Employer, and no structured record. The experience is there; it has simply never been assessed.
The returner. Someone who started a Training Agreement, changed employer or sector, and never picked it back up. A partial completion record helps here, but is not essential.
The person who came in sideways. An engineer who moved into civil or infrastructure engineering from an adjacent discipline, whose experience is real but does not fit a graduate training scheme.
The IEng MICE moving to Chartered. The top-up route, with a shorter report focused on the additional Chartered responsibilities.
Who should wait
If you cannot name a specific decision of your own in each of the seven attribute areas, the Career Appraisal is not a shortcut past that. It is assessed against the same attributes at the same level. The gap analysis is a better use of the next six months than a submission that comes back asking for more information.
Questions to ask yourself
Has ICE confirmed my educational base for the grade I am applying at?
This is a stated requirement of the route, not something the assessors will work around.
Am I currently on any scheme that blocks this?
A Training Agreement or mentor-supported registration you have forgotten about will stop the application.
Am I applying at the right grade?
The report is written against a stated level. Reworking it afterwards is a substantial rewrite, not an edit.
Do I have three years of CPD records?
The Career Appraisal requires a personal development record covering at least the last three years. If you have kept nothing, that is the constraint on your timing.
Before you decide this is your route
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Related pages and tools
- Career AppraisalHow experienced engineers complete IPD from work already done: what it is, what it asks for, and what the outcomes mean.
- Career Appraisal: the reportHow the Career Appraisal report works — including the one respect in which it differs from a Professional Review report.
- Educational baseWhat ICE means by educational base, the four ways of satisfying it, and why this is the stage to resolve first.
- Gap analysisFind the areas where your evidence is thin, and turn each one into a development action you can actually ask for.
- Recognition routesIf you are already registered or professionally qualified elsewhere, you may join the process at a different point.