ICE IEng and CEng interview: stock questions#

The ICE reviewers (or assessors if you’re an apprentice) will be asking questions to satisfy themselves that the candidate either does or doesn’t have the attributes the ICE requires of a professional member. The reviewers have a free hand to choose whatever questions they want and normally the bulk of questions will be tailored to the candidate’s particular experience or anything that seemed lacking to the reviewers when they read the candidate’s report. However, there are some questions that come up pretty frequently. Knowing the answers to these won’t guarantee passing a review by any stretch, but not knowing them will look bad and could mean failing.

1. Understanding and Practical Application of Engineering#

Could you draw a free body diagram, shear force diagram and/or bending moment diagram of that structure?#

Don’t let this one catch you out. You might not do much structural design in your role but reviewers consider it perfectly fair game to ask any civil engineer to describe the forces and moments in a structure. Remember your rule of superposition.

How would it affect the design if the soil was cohesive rather than granular (or vice versa)? Which is the more critical condition, when the soil is dry or saturated? What effect would compacting the soil have?#

The ICE won’t expect every candidate to be a geotechincal engineer. But these kinds of questions are what many reviewers would consider the geotech basics that every civil engineer should know. If you don’t do much geotech in your day job, you should brush up on the basics.

What are the key failure modes you considered in the design of …?#

Some engineers fall into the trap of writing and speaking in a way you might for a bid or in marketing, and talk as if everything went fine and there couldn’t possibly be a failure. Reviewers want to know the candidate in front of them understands how a structure could fail and how to ensure (so far as is reasonably practicable) that it won’t.

How did you verify the results from [some software or spreadsheet]?#

Reviewers look very unfavourably on candidates who seem to place a blind trust in their tools. If you do use advanced software (or fiendishly complicated standard spreadsheets written by someone else), get into the habit of finding simplified methods of checking the answers are in the right ballpark and be ready to talk through how you do that.

What formulas/methods is [some software or spreadsheet] based on?#

Reviewers don’t like to think that the candidate in front of them has no idea how the software they’re using works under the hood. You might be using FEM, CFD or surge modelling software that they wouldn’t expect you to have an in-depth understanding of the method, but they’d at least expect you to be able to pull out the right names of the equations and methods (e.g. the method of characteristics, Boussinesq, Colebrook-White, Saint Venant or whatever it happens to be.).

A common, related question would be something like “what factors influence the bending moment capacity of a beam/flow capacity of a pipe/bearing capacity of a soil?”, this tests that you know more than the names of some equations but have a practical, working knowledge of the things that influence whatever it is you’re building/designing.

What are the principal differences between temporary and permanent works design?#

What this one is getting at is, what are the differences between Limit state vs permissible stress design?

Give an example of how you have modified a design as a result of experience from being on site#

Have you ever deviated from client or industry specifications & standards? Why?#

Have good justifications for this.

Can you give examples of where you have researched a specific technique/technology or material?#

Can you provide an example of how you have effectively managed change due to changing technical or site information?#

2. Management and Leadership#

What is the difference between a manager and a leader?#

Not exactly a right and wrong answer to this but read around and have something to say.

How do you assess the competency of people working for you?#

How do you ensure timely delivery of your project?#

How do you deal with underperforming team members?#

How have you helped others learn on the job?#

Can you give and example of how you mitigated a delay?#

Can you provide an example of how you have effectively managed change?#

How do you ensure the quality of you and your teams outputs are of sufficient quality?#

Can you provide an example of how you have contributed to quality improvements?#

Especially in respect to making improvements to quality control procedures (CEng).

3. Commercial Ability#

How is your hourly charge out rate built up? What is the ratio between the charge-out rate and basic salary?#

Talk to your commercial manager if you need to.

What are the components of a legally binding contract? Describe those components in the contact on your project.#

  1. Offer

  2. Acceptance

  3. Consideration

  4. Intention to be legally bound

  5. The parties have contractual capacity
    Read up on what these things mean and how they apply in your project.

NEC#

If you’re working under an NEC contract there are quite a lot of questions about NEC that can come up, so revise the key parts of the contract like early warning notices, compensation events, clause 31 and 32 programmes and be ready to talk about how you worked in such a way that you demonstrate contractual awareness.

What other kinds of contract might have been chosen for this project? Was the one you had the best fit? What contract might have been best for a multinational project?#

You won’t be expected to have a detailed knowledge of forms of contract you’ve never used but please do have a general awareness so you can field this sort of question.

How are commercial risks controlled on your project?#

What is the most significant saving you have made on this project?#

How do you create and manage a budget?#

How does the business relationship work in which you are working (i.e. design and build partnership or some other collaboration)?#

Explain relationship between your company and your client#

What are the key criteria of your particular NEC Option contract (or whatever other contract you’re working under)?#

How do they affect the project delivery?#

What is the mechanism by which your company gets paid for works?#

Have you ever used commercial justifications to support an engineering decision (or vice versa)?#

Tender design - how did you assure yourself that you had developed the design to the correct level and carried out effective risk management?#

4. Health, Safety and Welfare#

Be aware that this is the only mandatory fail attribute. At the reviewer’s discretion the reviewers can pass you overall if you’re weak in a couple of attributes (although you should be aiming at 7/7). But if you fail on H&S you fail overall. The two things the reviewers will most want to see:

  1. Concrete examples of how you have kept people safe through your actions

  2. Good knowledge of the H&S laws and regulations that apply to your work

What is the difference between a hazard and a risk?#

Have you ever challenged an unsafe activity on site?#

You should foster an attitude where you are ready to challenge things that aren’t safe. Even if you’ve never done this on a construction site you should be able to point to good examples where you have challenged things that are unsafe (possibly in a design you were checking).

(Pointing at a photo in the report or presentation) Is that safe/how is such and such hazard being managed here?#

If you’ve put a photo of something terribly unsafe happening on your project you might have all but guaranteed failing before you started. Unless, the reason it’s in there is because you sorted things out. Construction sites are busy places and it’s likely there will be something in almost any site photo that isn’t quite perfect. Scrutinise your site photos for minor hazards. It doesn’t look great if the reviewers see something you don’t.

For consultants make sure you have a good understanding of how the construction team practically built your design. This is crucial knowledge and vital to working safely as a designer.

What was your most significant contribution to health and safety on this scheme?#

The reviewers don’t want to hear about how neat your paperwork was. They want to hear you talk about how you spotted something that could injure or kill someone, or cause occupational disease and what you did to eliminate, reduce, isolate or control that risk. This links strongly with communication, please make sure you’re doing what you can to ensure significant risks you spot don’t get lost in mountains of paperwork.

What are the responsibilities of the [client, contractor, consultant, principal contractor, principal consultant] under CDM?#

Revise this. Read through the regulations. Make notes on and memorise the key responsibilities.

What H&S regulations are applicable to your work?#

Which H&S regulation requires you to write a risk assessment?#

What were the most significant hazards on this project and why? How were they managed?#

Some engineers fall into the trap of being overly optimistic, saying things like “we eliminated all the significant risks” and can’t be drawn out to talk about the risks on the project. Another similar trap is being focused on the minor risks at the expense of major ones. This sort of thing will make reviewers concerned. As much as it has improved, construction is still high on the list of most dangerous industries. When a reviewer asks you this they’ll be expecting you to talk about things that cause fatalities, even multiple fatalities. They want to know you are aware of just how badly things can go wrong and that you are focused on the things that matter most; making sure people aren’t killed or injured on your project.

What are the highest causes of fatalities in the construction industry?#

The HSE website will give you all the latest stats. An obvious follow on is “how did you guard against these on your project?”

How do you comply with the requirements of and your obligations under the CDM regulations?#

How do you demonstrate the principles of prevention in your design work?#

What were the main hazards created by the design/solution you developed?#

How did you address these during the design process?#

How are residual risks passed forward to the construction/client teams?#

What were the most significant construction hazards on this project and why?#

How were they managed?

Example of residual risks which cannot be mitigated - practicable or total?#

How do you engage the client in the review of operation & maintenance risk?#

5. Sustainable Development#

Which of the UNSDGs did you apply on your project and how?#

Read through what these are and jot down which apply to you. They won’t all apply, and the reviewers won’t expect you to know what all 17 of them are, but they will expect you to know which ones do and be able to say what you’ve done.
Previously reviewers would ask what the three pillars of sustainability are. Some may still ask this although they’ve been told to switch to the UNSDGs.

Explain the concept of PAS2080 (hierarchy of reduction)#

What was your most significant contribution to sustainability on this scheme?#

Do you have any examples of where sustainability was a significant consideration of decision making?#

Is it possible for a project to meet all 17 UN SDGs? Why or why not?#

Do we have the right data to allow truly sustainable decisions to be made?#

Can solutions be both environmentally sustainable and resilient?#

Do the three pillars of sustainability still apply?#

Is it possible to make good decisions about a project and its sustainable benefits/impacts in isolation?#

How well do you think [your sector] understands its impacts in terms of sustainability?#

6. Interpersonal Skills and Communication#

How would you change the way you would explain your project when talking to a client/colleague/school-child/member of the public who lives near the construction site?#

Have you ever worked with someone who’s English isn’t very good? How did you deal with that?#

How do you record and communicate key learnings from your project?#

How you adapt your communication style when speaking to different audiences?#

Have you ever used your communication skills to successfully change opinions or intentions to achieve an alternative outcome?#

How have you proactively managed diversity and inclusion?#

7. Professional Commitment#

Who is the president of the ICE?#

Please, please make sure you know this one. Knowing a bit about them is no bad thing either (watch/read the inaugural address).

Have you ever dealt with bribery or other corruption in your projects?#

If the answer is “no” (and often it may well be), a similar question may follow on other un-ethical practices, or you may be asked what you would do in a hypothetical situation. Read up on the ICE code of conduct and be ready to answer this kind of question. Think especially about how conflicts of interest could arise and reasonable ways of dealing with that.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?#

There isn’t a right answer to this but you don’t want to sit there like a lemon not knowing what to say. Think about your dream job in the industry, describe how you’d like to get there. Sound enthusiastic.

What motivated you to become a civil engineer?#

Why do you want to become a member of the ICE?#

Which civil engineers inspire you the most (who you know personally, or famous engineers) and why?#

Again, no one right answer to these but they’re the sort of questions where the reviewers will want to hear a response that makes them feel like you have enthusiasm about being a civil engineer.

How have you engaged with or made a positive contribution to the institution?#

Thank you to additional question suggestions from:

  • Tom Rushby

  • Rachel Skinner (suggestions from 2025 Annual Reviewer’s conference)