Chartered Engineer (UK)

In the United Kingdom, a Chartered Engineer (CEng) is an engineer registered with the UK's regulatory body for the engineering profession, the Engineering Council. Chartered Engineers are master's degree qualified or must demonstrate equivalent masters level, work-based learning. The appropriate professional competencies must be demonstrated through education, further training and work experience. Significant experience is required which invariably spans several years of postgraduate professional practice. Demonstration of competence is defined in the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence, assessed through professional review of academic qualifications and professional development (training and professional work experience). Formal, non-formal and informal learning can be assessed. The title Chartered Engineer is protected in the UK under law by means of the Engineering Council's royal charter and bye-laws. As of 2019 there are approximately 180,000 engineers registered as a Chartered Engineer. Chartered Engineers are registered through Professional Engineering Institutions (PEIs) licensed by the Engineering Council which are relevant to their industry or specialism. The total process of formation of a Chartered Engineer including MEng typically spans at least 8-10 years, although 12+ years is not uncommon to satisfy all of the competency requirements.

Many engineering tasks covered by UK legislation specify Chartership as a requirement of the persons undertaking them. For example The Road Tunnel Safety Regulations 2007 require that for inspections "The person appointed as the inspection entity must be a Chartered Engineer or headed by a Chartered Engineer". Others require chartered engineers be registered with a particular institution, for example The Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property) (England and Wales) Regulations 2015 require assessments be carried out by a "chartered engineer...who is registered by the Institution of Civil Engineers".

In the 19th century engineering as a profession was becoming prolific and various disciplines (principally civil, mechanical and electrical) organised to form institutions to further the interests of their members and the industry as a whole. At this time, each institution began to implement entry examinations for membership to ensure a minimum standard of competence of their members. In the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), for example, candidates for associate membership would be expected to sit a general knowledge paper, a three-hour paper on applied mathematics, a three-hour paper on physics and chemistry and two three-hour papers elected from the following list: materials, steam engines, internal combustion engines, hydraulics, “electrotechnics”, the theory of machines, machine design and metallurgy. Membership of an engineering institution quickly became a mark of quality and would give employers confidence in the competency of its members. Various institutions sought royal charters to formalise their position and the members became engineers by charter, or 'chartered engineers' for that institutions discipline. The first was in 1828 when the Institute of Civil Engineers was awarded its royal charter (awarding Chartered Civil Engineer). On 22 April 1930 King George V signed the IMechE's royal charter allowing members to refer to themselves as Chartered Mechanical Engineers. By the mid-1950s, a significant demand for a central body to set the standards for education and training and to represent the wider profession had arisen. This led to the creation of the Joint Council of Engineering Institutions, established in 1964, that was later known as the Council of Engineering Institutions (CEI). This body was empowered to imbue the title of Chartered Engineer to elected members of PEIs. Despite attempts in the 1970s to replace the title with REng (Registered Engineer), the title of Chartered Engineer remains the de facto mark of the professional engineer in the UK and Ireland.

To become chartered, the Engineering Council require engineers meet requirements set out in The UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence and Commitment (UK-SPEC) which broadly fall into two categories, academic qualification and initial professional development (IPD).

The UK-SPEC denotes the following academic qualification requirements (for the 'traditional' pathway):

Initial Professional Development (IPD) is acquired through work place learning. The UK-SPEC splits IPD into five key competencies:

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

Competency B. Design, development and solving engineering problems
Chartered Engineers shall apply appropriate theoretical and practical methods to the analysis and solution of engineering problems.