Engineering Degrees UK + Chartered Engineers

[creampuff]

Right, I did my engineering degree in Australia, where all engineering degrees, no exceptions, are 4 years long. You get a pass degree or an honours degree depending on your grade, both still take 4 years. There are some para-engineering degrees which are not called BEng which are 3 years long in Oz, but you are going to end up stuck in a technician job if you do one of these. (I'm been living in the UK for some time, btw).

I've also got a masters degree, again from Australia. In Oz, a masters degree is relatively uncommon.

Am I correct in thinking that a British engineering degree is only 3 years and if you do the 4th year, then it becomes a masters degree?

If that is the case, is there any other intermediate step in between the 4th year which is called a Master of Engineering and a PhD?

Also chartered engineers - everyone (outside of oil and gas where they don't care) seems bothered about chartered engineers. Chartered this, chartered that. Why is there such an emphasis on being chartered in the UK? Are there a lot of crap degrees which the chartership process weeds out? Can you become chartered with a 3-year engineering degree? How long after graduation could you become chartered?

[Fugazi]

You could get an MPhil which sits somewhere between an undergrad degree and a PhD, but that's usually reserved for those who didn't do well enough to attain a PhD. When I signed up for my PhD I was registered as an MPhil in case students turned out to be rubbish and it was some kind of insurance for supervisors to drop under performing students. Although I have seen some MPhil courses on offer but I don't know who they're aimed at, as you might as well do a PhD?

I did the 4 year MEng and was told at the time that for new graduates it's pretty much the standard route for chartership and if you only had a BEng you'd need to potentially need to do a further degree later down the line or have significant professional development. How true or strict that is for different professional bodies I don't know.

[C0ffin D0dger]

Doing a PhD is fundamentally different to a B or M.Eng. The latter are structured courses with exams and coursework / projects at the end on which you assessed and given a grade.

A PhD is about doing several years of research and writing a thesis about it. It's very much self led with little or no formal learning (i.e. lectures) although you have a lot of boffins available to help you out. Quite often the PhD would be funded by a company or by a commercial part of the University as your work will be potentially valuable to the industry.

As for the chartered thing, I studied Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Uni, I only did a B.Eng and back then it would have been sufficient to gain a chartered status once combined with some work experience. I gather they now want you to have an M.Eng as a general rule. I never bothered getting chartered but I am a fully paid up member of the IET. I'm sure it would be a fairly simple exercise for me to get it now as I'd hope the 20+ years of working in the industry would now be significantly more valuable than the degree, from what I can gather I'd just need to go for some sort of interview / assessment. Probably in their interests as they get more fees from you if chartered

I've never really seen any companies that require it in the Electronics industry, I work for a large multinational that you might think would place a lot of importance on things like this but it seems not though they do pay my fees each year. It may be different in other sectors though e.g. mechanical, civil, etc.

Edited by C0ffin D0dger on Tuesday 25th August 11:47

[Crusoe]

Straight from school at 17/18 you could get Beng in 3 years, four years for Beng Honors and 5 for a masters. Different ways to achieve it though as it depends where you start off, have some of my guys doing their degree just now over 8 years distance learning and others doing HNC then HNC college courses which would then put them into just one year at university to get their degree.

[Crusoe]

For ISO/API qualification and other standards you need so many chartered engineers in your department signing off work so it is important even in oil and gas, though we only give an extra £500 a year bonus for getting it here. Last time I looked I think it was possible to get chartered with a Beng or above in two years if you did all the reports and projects work or you could wait eight years and submit a portfolio of all the practical engineering experience you had gained and submit a report.

[bucksmanuk]

Assuming we are talking about mechanical engineers here? Each of the Institutes is slightly different in how they go about this.

creampuff said:

“Can you become chartered with a 3-year engineering degree? “

Yes, providing the experience backs it up, I would consider it rare though, as others have alluded to. M.Eng is considered the minimum today.

creampuff said:

How long after graduation could you become chartered?

On an MPDS scheme – about 4 years, but that’s rushing it in my opinion. For me it was 19 years! I went in as a mature candidate (Strewth – who told them I was mature?). From my CV I was told I could have gone in 10 years previously.

The quality of both the degree and the work experience is a bit see-saw in my opinion. And it depends upon what is the flavour of the month as to acceptance criteria to the IMECHE.
Project management
Seniority of position
Published work
Research
All have been hot topics at some stage, note “being a really good engineer” isn’t one of them.

creampuff said:

Am I correct in thinking that a British engineering degree is only 3 years and if you do the 4th year, then it becomes a master’s degree?

No – it depends upon the degree, a sandwich is 4 years say, and then it depends if the M.Sc. is deemed the same as an M.Eng or vice versa.

creampuff said:

Also chartered engineers - everyone (outside of oil and gas where they don't care)

I was told last year 2 of the O&G majors won’t consider you for senior positions without chartership. But yes it is becoming more of a requirement than it was 10 years ago. It TENDS to be a legal thing nowadays, as people have to be far more aware of the legislation that affects their work.
An ex work colleague is currently in India for an O&G major, and he has been told, no chartership- no good promotions. It’s a small sample size I admit.
Yes I wouldn’t say it’s chartered this and chartered that per se, it’s more the effect of people saying they are mechanical engineers (that old chestnut), who haven’t done mechanical engineering degrees.

creampuff said:

Are there a lot of crap degrees which the chartership process weeds out?

The IMECHE are concerned about many (but not all) product design/industrial engineering degrees, as well as a few mechanical engineering degrees (but not many)

[was8v]

Your degree also need to be "accredited" by the professional institution (iMechE, IEE, BCS), they check the course content and visit once a year to make sure everything is tip top.

You can do a BEng and then an MEng and if both courses were not "accredited" then they won't fulfil the requirements of CEng. Yes you can do a BEng in the UK thats not accredited.

I doubt your Australian degress were "accredited" by the UK professional institutions so they won't fulfil the requirements. I'm not sure if you have an equivalent body in Oz that does this or if you could get the course content approved in some way.

Some routes:

3yr BEng, 1yr MEng then CEng after some experience (can be done in 2-4 yrs).

4yr MEng, experience then CEng

There is no requirement to get a masters before starting a PhD, many people do them after just a Bachelors, usual in the UK to be registered for MPhil until you prove your worth after year one, unusual minimum for a PhD is 3 years.

If you do a PhD and stay in an academic position then there is an academic route to CEng that accounts for the differences.

Edited by was8v on Tuesday 25th August 13:42

[creampuff]

C0ffin D0dger said:

Doing a PhD is fundamentally different to a B or M.Eng.

In this country it may be - in most of the rest of the world an MEng is usually a research degree with no or very little coursework and which you can exit at MEng stage or continue to PhD stage.

Hence my surprise when I found out that an English (Scotland appears different) MEng just seems to be equivalent to 4th year of a BEng elsewhere.

[creampuff]

bucksmanuk said:

creampuff said:

Also chartered engineers - everyone (outside of oil and gas where they don't care)

I was told last year 2 of the O&G majors won’t consider you for senior positions without chartership. But yes it is becoming more of a requirement than it was 10 years ago. It TENDS to be a legal thing nowadays, as people have to be far more aware of the legislation that affects their work.
An ex work colleague is currently in India for an O&G major, and he has been told, no chartership- no good promotions. It’s a small sample size I admit.
Yes I wouldn’t say it’s chartered this and chartered that per se, it’s more the effect of people saying they are mechanical engineers (that old chestnut), who haven’t done mechanical engineering degrees.

I've worked in O&G for a long time... even in senior positions (e.g. project managers, lead engineers, department managers), many of my colleagues do not even have a degree - they have HNDs. The ones under about 50 will usually have a BEng, but I don't know anybody who has a MEng (regardless of by coursework or by research). The delivery manager on my last big project was an ex-diver. I've been chartered since 1998, but nobody in oil/gas has ever asked about it (I've held engineering positions up to lead engineer level), although it is in my CV. I have assumed in oil/gas it is of little significance as there may be a requirement to provide evidence of having a degree, but never a requirement to provide evidence of being chartered. The only instances where it has been important are when I've provided expert witness services in commercial disputes.

As an FYI, I'm chartered with Engineers Australia (so my post nominals are MIEAust CPEng) - they have, in my discipline, equivalence with ICE and IStrucE. I've never looked into if being a member of ICE or IStrucE is a form filling exercise or if there are additional requirements.

My masters degree was totally separate to the BEng. Different university. No coursework, research only. I didn't want to continue to a PhD as I thought I'd be considered too boffin-like at it would make it harder to get a job rather than more employable.

Offshore oil and gas is down the toilet at the moment, so I'm looking at other industries and there it seems a "masters" degree, which imho is just 4th year of a bachelors degree and chartership seem to be important.

Edited by creampuff on Wednesday 26th August 15:36

[Timbo_S2]

I'm Chartered with Engineers Australia - it was a simple form filling exercise for me, and have colleagues who have come the other way and found ICE the same. I'm also IStructE, that's always subject to the 8hr exam...

[a311]

Hopefully won't repeat what's been said above too much.

UK higher education system is based on earning credits.

BEng (Hons) 3 years full time

MEng 4 years fulltime often with a placement element. These ‘integrated’ Masters courses were designed with an eye on chartership once the rules were altered (basically a requirement for post graduate qualification) A MEng in terms of credits is more than a bachelors but less than a bachelors and a separate masters.

There are also PhD’s and now Engineering doctorates- EngD

I’m a mentor for those looking to get chartered in the company I work for. Really it’s all about providing evidence, there are guys who don’t have degrees but are chartered by virtue of years of experience and being able to meet the standard. Each institution will have various routes to get you to chartered status, if your degree isn’t accredited it will either require more evidence or an interview with a chartership panel.

Really the title of engineer is undervalued in the UK and organisations aren’t universally held to a set standard, probably because everyone and their dog calls themselves an engineer, sky engineer, appliance engineer and so on. An oven engineer came out to my house a couple of weeks ago. 20 years ago you didn’t really need a degree to get in the door now you do, it may be in time you need chartership too. For anyone with a degree and experience I see no reason not to if your employer is paying your fees.

Get in touch with the institution and they’ll take you through your options.

[Otispunkmeyer]

creampuff said:

Right, I did my engineering degree in Australia, where all engineering degrees, no exceptions, are 4 years long. You get a pass degree or an honours degree depending on your grade, both still take 4 years. There are some para-engineering degrees which are not called BEng which are 3 years long in Oz, but you are going to end up stuck in a technician job if you do one of these. (I'm been living in the UK for some time, btw).

I've also got a masters degree, again from Australia. In Oz, a masters degree is relatively uncommon.

Am I correct in thinking that a British engineering degree is only 3 years and if you do the 4th year, then it becomes a masters degree?

If that is the case, is there any other intermediate step in between the 4th year which is called a Master of Engineering and a PhD?

Also chartered engineers - everyone (outside of oil and gas where they don't care) seems bothered about chartered engineers. Chartered this, chartered that. Why is there such an emphasis on being chartered in the UK? Are there a lot of crap degrees which the chartership process weeds out? Can you become chartered with a 3-year engineering degree? How long after graduation could you become chartered?

Yep in the UK standard BEng is 3 years. You can do MEng courses which run to 4. At mine you could transition from BEng to MEng up to year 2. After that you were stuck as the courses went slightly separate ways. The BEng people than have to come back and apply to do a Masters course which is a year long and full of bulk learning modules. IMO that route is harder (in terms of the time you've got to learn stuff, not necessarily the difficulty of the stuff) and more expensive (higher fees and you need a home for a year instead of 9-10 months).

As others have said MPhil sits between MEng and PhD. Most places you'll find PhD students are Masters level guys, though there are some BEng guys who are there because their supervisors at undergrad think they suitable for it. But normally if you are coming in as a new guy our place used to ask minimum 2.1 at MEng.

MPhil is the fall back if the PhD looks like its going to be a bit of a fail.

There is also something called an Eng.D which is a PhD level work except its usually done in industry. Almost backwards to a Engineering PhD where you work at the university and you might be collaborating with an OEM for instance. On the Eng.D you work at the OEM and collaborate of make use of the University! In those cases you are working on something that is valuable to the company, whereas some university research can almost be research for research sake.

The chartership point is probably going to illicit wildly different answers. For Mechanical Engineering you are chartered through the IMechE. It used to be that it took 4 years of rather excessive report writing and hoop jumping to build a portfolio of evidence then you'd go to 1 Birdcage walk and have an interview after which they might award you chartership. You can do it all online. Not sure what the deal is now, its probably similar but I think they streamlined it at little and cut down the hoop jumping.

As for what its worth? I know many engineers who don't have chartership and it doesn't hurt their chances at all.

A company I used to work at went on about getting their engineers chartered but it was basically explained to me that they wanted it so that they could bang their own drum to clients about "how many chartered engineers they have". It never actually meant anything for your pay or prospects at the company.

You should also know that go through the process you must be a member of the IMechE for which there is an annual fee (not sure how much £100-£150?). Once you are chartered this membership fee increases (I am sure my friend told me it was well over £200... I may be wrong though). If you don't keep up the payments, then I think you lose the right to use the CEng.

What you get for your fee is..... well I don't know, the right to use CEng? They do have regular local meetings and lectures to go to. If you have time and if its interesting that is. You also get sent a monthly magazine called PE. Its sometimes worth a quick read, other times is garbage and its full of ads.

Other than that I don't really know the benefits are. I don't know anyone yet who's thought it really improved their pay and prospects. The IMechE's website does list that they offer many support services and you get access to a decent library of books, including having actual hardcopies sent to your house to borrow if you need them.

I guess its one those things where if you really use their services the annual fee sorta makes sense. But I imagine for a lot of people they're paying the fee for a crappy magazine every month and the CEng at the end of their email signature.