Phase 5 · Build your portfolio

Finding the gaps early

What to do about an objective you cannot evidence — and how long each kind of gap actually takes to close.

Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Mentors ·Employers

A gap found three years out is a development plan. The same gap found three months out is a decision about whether to apply.

Gaps are not all the same size

It is worth separating them, because the response differs completely.

A writing gap. You have the experience; the form does not show it. This is the cheapest gap in the process and the most common. It closes in an afternoon with your mentor.

An evidence gap. You did the work but kept nothing — no marked-up calculation, no correspondence, no annotated drawing. Sometimes recoverable from project records, often not. This is the argument for keeping evidence as you go.

A level gap. You have done the work only under supervision, and the objective is set at Ability. Closing it means changing how you work: taking a decision and standing behind it, checking someone else's design, advising. Months, not weeks, and it needs your employer's cooperation.

An experience gap. You have never done it. Sustainability, construction, and commercial and legal are the usual ones. Closing it means a different project, a different role, or a deliberate secondment. Plan in years.

What to do with a real gap

Take it to your mentor and put it in the development action plan — that plan is exactly what it is for. Then be specific about what would close it: not "get more sustainability experience", but "carry out the option comparison including embodied carbon on the next scheme, and write the note myself".

If a gap cannot be closed before the application deadline you were aiming at, the honest options are to move the date, or to apply knowing that objective is weak. Both are legitimate; drifting into the interview hoping the reviewers do not probe it is not. It is your responsibility to demonstrate every one of the ten, and reviewers question primarily on what you have submitted.

The objectives that hide

Candidates tend to audit the technical objectives carefully and skim the rest. In practice the ones that catch people are the ones that feel like somebody else's job:

Sustainability, when the environmental work was done by a specialist and you only received the output.
Health, safety and risk, when a designer's duties under the CDM regime were followed rather than led.
Management, when you have run tasks but never a resource, a programme or a person.
Commercial and legal, when fees, contracts and appointments have been handled above you.

None of these can be written into existence at the end. Audit them first.

How long each kind of gap takes

Queensferry's characterisation, from the shape of the requirements rather than from any IStructE statement about timescales.
	What closes it	Realistic time
Writing	Rewriting the form so it states what you did, at what level	An afternoon, with a mentor review
Evidence	Retrieving or reconstructing records, annotating them	Days to weeks, if the records still exist
Level	Working unsupervised on it, checking others, advising	Several months, and it needs your employer
Experience	A different project, role or secondment	A year or more — plan it deliberately

Queensferry's characterisation, from the shape of the requirements rather than from any IStructE statement about timescales.

The audit, in four questions per objective

Can I name a specific piece of work that evidences this?
If the honest answer is a category rather than an instance, there is no evidence yet.
Did I do it, or was I present while it was done?
Reviewers are interested only in what you personally undertook. Proximity to good work is not evidence.
Was I supervised, and does that matter for this objective?
It matters entirely where the minimum standard is Ability, and hardly at all where it is Knowledge.
Do I still hold something that shows it?
An objective you can describe but not evidence will not survive a portfolio that must cross-reference to the forms.

Gap analysis

For each objective, name the kind of gap. The kind matters more than the size, because the four kinds close on completely different timescales.

Grade I am working towards

01Professional Standards and Engineering ResponsibilityKnowledge
Kind of gap for Professional Standards and Engineering Responsibility
02CommunicationAbility
Kind of gap for Communication
03Concept Creation and DesignAbility
Kind of gap for Concept Creation and Design
04Analysis and SizingAbility
Kind of gap for Analysis and Sizing
05MaterialsAbility
Kind of gap for Materials
06SustainabilityExperience
Kind of gap for Sustainability
07ConstructionExperience
Kind of gap for Construction
08Health, Safety and Risk ManagementExperience
Kind of gap for Health, Safety and Risk Management
09ManagementExperience
Kind of gap for Management
10Commercial and LegalKnowledge
Kind of gap for Commercial and Legal

No level or experience gaps recorded. If that is genuinely the case, the remaining work is in how the forms and portfolio present what you already have.

This records your own judgement about your own experience. It does not assess you, does not predict an interview outcome, and does not indicate that any objective has been met.

Everything here is stored in this browser only. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is analysed, and clearing your browser data will delete it — so export anything you want to keep.