Get Chartered

Demonstrate your engineering expertise, commitment and ethical standards by becoming chartered.

The mark to set you apart

The gold standard

Establish yourself as an industry leader with a post nominal that shows your level of engineering knowledge. You’ll open yourself up to new career opportunities by showing you’re a credible engineer that values professionalism, ethics and continual learning.

Global mobility

Mutual recognition of your engineering competence can help make it more straightforward to find work overseas – or having your skills recognised here in New Zealand. Gaining Chartership will show your knowledge meets internationally-benchmarked standards, and is among the best in the world.

Job requirement

To get to the next level in your career, Chartership may be a prerequisite. Many authorities and employers require engineers to be chartered in order to sign off certain work. Provide them with the assurance that you’re competent and one of the best engineers.

Your eligibility

All engineers can become chartered, and it’s easy with the same assessment applying to all. We offer different categories for professional, technologist, technician or geologist.

Professional Engineer

Complex engineering problems and activities

Washington Accord (4 year BE) or equivalence
Chartered Member
IntPE(NZ)/APEC Engineer
CPEng

Engineering Technologist

Broadly-defined engineering problems and activities

Sydney Accord (3 year BEngTech) or equivalence
Chartered Member (Eng. Technologist)
IntET(NZ)

Engineering Technician

Well-defined engineering problems and activities

Dublin Accord (2 year NZDE) or equivalence
Chartered Member (Eng. Technician)
IntETn(NZ)

Engineering Geologist

Complex engineering geological problems and activities

Recognised postgraduate qualification in Engineering Geology
Chartered Member (PEngGeol)

Mutual recognition

If you have an engineering registration with a signatory to the Washington, Sydney or Dublin Accord, you may be eligible for direct entry into Chartered Membership.

Knowledge assessment

Don’t have a Washington Accord-accredited qualification? You can demonstrate equivalent knowledge for entry into Professional Engineer (Chartered Membership or Chartered Professional Engineer) by completing a knowledge assessment.

Don’t have a Sydney or Dublin Accord-accredited qualification? Your equivalent knowledge will be evaluated as part of your chartership assessment.

Membership or registration?

There’s two ways to become Chartered as a professional engineer – through Engineering New Zealand membership as a Chartered Member (CMEngNZ) or through registration as a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng). Our Chartered Member class provides a general quality mark of professionalism along with all the benefits of membership. CPEng registration provides a mark of current competence based on legislation. You can be both a Chartered Member and CPEng, or just one.

Which is right for you?

Chartered Member (CMEngNZ)	Registration (CPEng)
Chartered Member (CMEngNZ) Quality mark of general competence and professionalism	Registration (CPEng) Quality mark of current New Zealand specific competence
Chartered Member (CMEngNZ) Benefits of Engineering New Zealand membership	Registration (CPEng) Independent of Engineering New Zealand and governed by CPEng Act 2002
Chartered Member (CMEngNZ) Assessed once, with annual commitment to ongoing professional development and ethics	Registration (CPEng) Re-assessed at least every six years
Chartered Member (CMEngNZ) Assesses general engineering competence to an internationally recognised standard	Registration (CPEng) Assesses general engineering competence to an internationally recognised standard with current New Zealand specific competence
Chartered Member (CMEngNZ) Basis of eligibility for international registers (IntPE, IntET, IntETn)	Registration (CPEng) May be required depending on your employer or type of work

The assessment process

1. Join our community

Not a member yet? Join us and get access to our online member area to record all your work and CPD records that will help build your portfolio of evidence for your Chartership application. If you don’t want to become a member, you will need to add your evidence when you complete your Chartership assessment to become CPEng.

Join us

2. Create work and CPD records

Start adding work and CPD records as soon as you join, so you don’t forget the details. Adding records as you go will make it quicker and easier to complete your Chartership application. Your work records provide evidence of your work history and build a picture of the type of engineering activities you carry out. Your CPD records could include formal education, courses, workshops, conferences, Engineering New Zealand branch or group activities, mentoring or volunteering. These all provide evidence of your ongoing professional development and count towards Engineering New Zealand members’ requirement to complete 40 hours of CPD each year.

3. Start your application

When you’ve got enough experience to meet the engineering complexity requirements for Chartership, you can start your application. You’ll need to:

Complete some details about you and the practice fields you want to be assessed for, and upload a current CV
Supply two referees that can recommend you for Chartership
Show how you meet the areas of competency
Link relevant work and CPD records as evidence of your competence

4. Submit your application

Once you’ve completed all sections of the application, you’re ready to submit it to us. Our team will check you have everything you need in it, before it goes for evaluation with our assessors. As part of their evaluation, there will be an in-person session and your assessors may set you a task to find out more about your experience and knowledge. They will give a recommendation on whether you should receive Chartership, and then a Board make a final decision.

See our dates for getting your application in

Fees and charges (excl GST)

Chartered assessment $1,721.50

Knowledge assessment $1,295.50 (required if you're applying for Chartered Member and don't have a Washington Accord-accredited qualification or recognised equivalent)

Annual fee $560.00

If you join partway through our financial year (1 October – 30 September), we pro-rate the annual fee on a monthly basis. When your membership comes up for renewal on 1 October, we send an invoice for the new financial year.

If you're on a career break or retired, you can request a discounted rate on your annual fee.

Find out more about career breaks

Request discount