Chartered Engineer (CEng)

CIWEM offers the widest range of charterships and technical membership grades of any professional institute in the water and environment sector, reflecting our engagement with the widest spectrum of environmental issues.

When you become a chartered member of CIWEM, you also have the opportunity to apply for the Engineering Council's registration Chartered Engineer (CEng), which can be applied for at the same time. If you are already a chartered member of CIWEM, you can submit an application for CEng in a separate application.

Becoming a Chartered Engineer (CEng)

Chartered Engineers (CEng) develop solutions to engineering problems using new or existing technologies, through innovation, creativity and change and/or they may have technical accountability for complex systems with significant levels of risk.

Chartered Engineers are able to demonstrate:

The theoretical knowledge to solve problems in new technologies and develop new analytical techniques
Successful application of the knowledge to deliver innovative products and services and/or take technical responsibility for complex engineering systems
Accountability for project, finance and personnel management and managing trade-offs between technical and socio-economic factors
Skill sets necessary to develop other technical staff
Effective interpersonal skills in communicating technical matters.

Why become a Chartered Engineer?

The benefits of professional registration as a Chartered Engineer (CEng) include:

Become professionally registered as an CEng – a globally recognised benchmark
Improved career prospects and employability
Higher earning potential
Demonstration of a professional attitude valued by employers and customers
International recognition of competence and commitment
Evidence of expertise
Greater influence within industry and own organisation

Watch the Engineering Councils 'Benefits of professional registration' video here:

Who can join?

The CEng title is open to anyone who can demonstrate the required professional competences and commitment, as set out in the professional standard UK-SPEC, available to download here. Individuals generally develop these through education and working experience.

Recognised Qualifications

The application process for CEng registration is more straightforward for those with recognised academic qualifications. For CEng this is one of the following:

A Bachelors degree, with Honours, in engineering or technology, accredited for CEng, plus an appropriate and accredited Masters degree or Engineering Doctorate (EngD), or appropriate further learning to Masters level
An accredited Bachelors degree (Hons) in engineering or technology (if obtained before the year 2000). You can find out if your courses are accredited by the Engineering Council here.
An accredited integrated MEng degree

If you cannot find your course on the Engineering Council’s database and have studied at a European university, your degree may still be recognised as equivalent to an Engineering Council accredited degree for registration purposes. You can check this here.

Individual Assessment

Applicants may also apply through Individual Assessment if one or both their degrees are not listed on the Engineering Council’s accredited course search and are from an appropriate academic background.

To apply through Individual Assessment for CEng, you will need to have your qualifications approved by the CIWEM Qualifications Panel (QP) before submitting your online application. To do so please send a copy of your CV, university certificates and transcripts (undergraduate and postgraduate if applicable) and a summary of your dissertation or final year project to membership@ciwem.org.

When assessing qualifications, the QP look at how much engineering an applicant has undertaken during their studies and whether they are sufficient to meet the output standards for engineering programmes agreed between the Engineering Council and the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (available here). If the Panel identify aspects that can be matched against all engineering output standards they will confirm the applicant’s eligibility to submit a CEng application.

In some cases where the QP cannot identify sufficient engineering content in an applicant’s qualifications, they may decide that there is potential for the applicant to demonstrate that they have achieved the equivalent learning to the recognised qualifications through their industry experience. In such cases they may invite the applicant to undertake the Work Based Learning Route towards CEng. Alternatively, they may also recommend the applicant undertakes further learning in order to be eligible to apply for CEng.

Please note applicants holding the recognised qualifications are automatically eligible for interim registration.

Engineering Council Standards Update

All applicants for engineering registration with CIWEM for are assessed against the standards as defined by the Engineering Council (EngC) in the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC). The 4th edition of the UK-SPEC was published on 1 September 2020, for implementation across the sector by 31 December 2021. The 4th edition is available here, with a summary of the key changes. We are in the process of transitioning to the 4th edition and there will be updates to our application/guidance documents and website over the next couple of months. Professional review interviews will not be available against the UK-SPEC 3 standards after 31 December 2021 and all applications from the 06 December deadline will be assessed against UK-SPEC 4.

Professional Competencies

All applicants for CEng, need to demonstrate the required professional competences and commitment, which can be viewed below:

Chartered Engineers shall use a combination of general and specialist engineering knowledge and understanding to optimise the application of advanced and complex systems.