Hi,
I am going through my professional review with The IET for CEng; I currently hold a IEng with CIWEM. My question is, can I hold both CEng and IEng with the two different institutions?

Thanks

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Steven Michael Lamb BEngHons MSc IEng CEnv CWEM MCIWEM MIEMA MIET

Hi,

I could be wrong but are engineers not registered as IEng/CEng with the Engineering Council and are simply just members IET/CIWEM/etc?

If so, I wouldn't have thought you could obtain both IEng & CEng simultaneously.

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JBB IEng MIET

Hi,
Thanks for the reply; I have seen on a few occasions some people with post-nominal's CEng and IEng.
I thought that maybe they are technologists in the implementation of certain technologies (i.e. Mechanical implementation [pumps, chillers, etc.]) but are design leaders in a different field (Electrical Engineering).
Steve

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Steven Michael Lamb BEngHons MSc IEng CEnv CWEM MCIWEM MIEMA MIET

The guidance that I have received from Engineering Council is that it is possible to be in both the IEng & CEng sections of the professional register. However each has an annual maintenance fee so you would have to pay twice.

For members of several institutions one licenced body holds the registration and pays Engineering Council, so using a different body for each section of the register becomes complicated. A registration may be transferred to a different body, but the IET only allows this following its own checks.

It would be pleasing to see that an IEng wanted to keep this registration despite achieving CEng because it represents a statement of something different, such as "practicality". However the process has always been promoted in a way that assumes gaining CEng subsumes IEng. This assumption isn't very helpful to senior IEng registrants who gained acceptance from Engineering Council at one time for the slogan "equal but different". It is also supports the concept that education is of much higher value than experience. Many excellent CEng registrants will not have met the IEng standard.

Perhaps Engineering Council will consider as part of its campaign to revitalise IEng, waiving the second fee for an IEng transferring to CEng and wanting to maintain IEng.

I am not keen on the "discipline specific" argument like "mechanically I'm IEng and electrically I'm CEng". Where do you draw these distinction lines? The IET embraces a very wide range of narrow, multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary practice.

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Roy Bowdler IEng FIET FCIPD
IET Registration & Standards

Thanks for your reply; I agree with your last statement regarding "discipline specific" registration, I included that only as an example, it was just to illustrate the point.
I believe that if you achieve IEng you should keep this even if you undertake the CEng and I am happy that the Engineering council allows this practice.


Steve

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Steven Michael Lamb BEngHons MSc IEng CEnv CWEM MCIWEM MIEMA MIET

I think it is very unlikely the engineering council will allow dual registration to continue given their view of the 'progressive' nature of EngTech/IEng/CEng.

It is my view that the campaign to revitalise IEng will fail because of the inability of the engineering to define a distinct value to the award. This is due to the fact that IEng sits between Engtech and CEng on the progressive qualification structure. The Engtech and CEng qualifications are clearly understood with most people understanding the difference between a technician and a professional engineer. Trying to define a middle rung on the ladder is impossible if you are trying to apply it to a broad competency framework (such as UKSpec).

No other country is successful in promoting this 3 level approach, for example Australia only has a few thousand registered at engineering technologist level or the US which also has had zero success.

I think it is very unlikely the engineering council will allow dual registration to continue given their view of the 'progressive' nature of EngTech/IEng/CEng.

It is my view that the campaign to revitalise IEng will fail because of the inability of the engineering to define a distinct value to the award. This is due to the fact that IEng sits between Engtech and CEng on the progressive qualification structure. The Engtech and CEng qualifications are clearly understood with most people understanding the difference between a technician and a professional engineer. Trying to define a middle rung on the ladder is impossible if you are trying to apply it to a broad competency framework (such as UKSpec).

No other country is successful in promoting this 3 level approach, for example Australia only has a few thousand registered at engineering technologist level or the US which also has had zero success.

Just to add my 2 cents worth.

I had ambition in aquiring a string of registrations letters after my name (EngTech, IEng and CEng) and even managed to gain memberships of a number of organisations. But being older and wiser I realise now it was only to satisfy my ego and lack of self confidence.

The reality is this. In the UK, engineering and technology industries don't require engineers to be validated by their peers (IET, IMechE, EC) for the purposes of appointment or promotion. They are quite capable of determining the best engineer for the job.

To emphasis, in my previous employement, I worked in a division of 200 staff, of which one member was a CEng. We were doing different roles, but were on the same salary grade. I worked at graduate level, but wasn't registered with the EC. In the end it mattered nowt to the employer who had a string of letters after their name and who didn't.

My advise is, unless someone is a serious world class engineer with the reputation to go with it and can command their own pay award, it's a waste of time and money spent on gaining memberships and registrations. A BSc degree can only go so far, until the person starts looking silly with a whole host of letters after their name when doing the same job as others without registration.

Achieveing academic success through exam passes is much better than getting memberships of various clubs.

Edited: 20 October 2012 at 02:40 PM by mbirdi

I'd fully agree, with one slight caveat. There are a few industries (for example in my case railway signalling) where, just occasionally, it helps answer the question of "where is your evidence that your staff are professional?" Now most of us know, including the assessor that's looking for this evidence, that it's only another tiny fragment of the picture - but it's so hard "proving" that an engineer is professional that every little helps.

But it would make it a lot more valid if there was genuine tracking of continuing competence (perhaps reassessment).

Oh, and it would be great to see IEng/CEng withdrawn for acts of gross arrogance and inability to take a measured, impartial and, above all, polite and respectful approach Now why should browsing these forums make me think that (Not this thread I hasten to add!!)

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Andy Millar CEng MIET MCMI

http://www.linkedin.com/in/millarandy

I think it is more important to have good measures that the relevant persons are competent for their work.

Regards.

I think that the assessor would rely on licensing award by the IRSE rather than the broader UKSpec competency framework.

http://www.irselicensing.org/default.aspx

As I have said before, IEng is of no value to an individual as it marks you out as a failed CEng.

Although you are entitled to your opinion I can not understand the logic behind that statement for the majority of IEng registered engineers.

Someone has only failed to obtain CEng if they have applied for it and deemed not to have met the standard. Although I don't know the statistics, i would imagine that the majority of IEng have probably never applied for CEng so cannot then be labelled as a failed CEng.

I am aware that in some instances those that apply for CEng and don't meet the requirements can be offered IEng if they satisfy the criteria, although I doubt even they would take too kindly to being labelled a failed CEng.

Kind regards

Donald Lane

The 'failed CEng' was a term used by the engineering council. For many years the EC specified that the IEng award was equal to but different from CEng and as such degrees in engineering technology should have a specific course content, degrees accredited for CEng would not be accredited for IEng because they didn't want to infer that IEng was a failed CEng (their words not mine). A few years ago the EC made a volte-face and decided that all CEng degrees would be accredited for IEng as well, which overnight doubled the number of IEngs awards. So one can assume that IEng was being awarded to individuals who would not pass CEng.
It is my view that dual registration is seen as a problem by the EC and they will most probably take steps to avoid it happening.

Not necessarily, it depends what you are doing. Maybe you have to trust me on this, I help run an engineering design team which is very(!) well known in the rail signalling world: we have one IRSE member and no IRSE licensed engineers. It's just not relevant to product design, even SIL4 signalling equipment.

More to the point of this discussion, IRSE licensing is a certification of a particular skill set, not a level of general professionalism: which is what IEng and CEng are.

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Andy Millar CEng MIET MCMI

http://www.linkedin.com/in/millarandy

In the same sense that a solicitor is a failed barrister, a GP is a failed surgeon, a school teacher is a failed university lecturer, a counsellor is a failed priest?
Just because we're not all Stephen Hawking does not mean we're all failures! We're just doing different jobs.

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Andy Millar CEng MIET MCMI

http://www.linkedin.com/in/millarandy

No, the difference is that a solicitor who wishes to practice has to have a distinctive solicitor qualification to allow them to do so. The same applies to a general practitioner in medicine. Teachers have to have a PGCE in the state sector. A counsellor and priest are two completely different professions, so don't understand that example??.
The examples you quote are distinct professional roles with distinctive qualification and regulation requirements
What I am saying is that the IEng qualification is not distinctive. It is not a requirement of engineering technology roles, it is very rare to see IEng engineering job advertisements. There is very little understanding of IEng even in large engineering companies (i.e. I saw a presentation by BAE which said IEng was not even on the radar in terms of professional competency).

IEng and CEng are a status, not a job.

Regards.

I would disagree. I don't find it hard to identify those I roles around me which require "CEng" competencies and those which require "IEng" competentcies. And it's not a seniority thing, both Directors on my site could register as IEng but not CEng.


Now this is very true. And you could certainly debate whether there is a need for a formal recognition of IEng status if industry so clearly doesn't think so. But then it's pretty true for CEng too except in a real minority of cases.


Exactly. And I see IEng and CEng just like this. It would be unlikely that I would recruit an IEng to do a CEng's job or vice versa.

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Andy Millar CEng MIET MCMI

http://www.linkedin.com/in/millarandy

This could be worth understanding, especially by the EC who seem to have issues with trying to present the two status's as distinctive from each other.

Please, what are these roles and what makes the two status's distinctive from each other, in your opinion?

Regards.

My interpretation is that there is no distinction apart from the IEng competency descriptors being weaker than the CEng. If IEng were geared to operational roles and CEng to design I would understand, but that is not the case.