In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with ICE before applying.
Reviewers need to see your competence in the account you submit. Even a substantial project provides weak evidence when your own contribution is unclear.
The ladder
The same piece of work can be described at any rung. Which one you can honestly claim depends on what you did, and being clear-eyed about it early is far more useful than discovering it in an interview.
I was there. No evidence at all. Presence is not competence.
I contributed. True of everyone on the project. A reviewer cannot separate you from the team.
I was responsible. The work was yours to get right. This is where usable evidence starts.
I decided. You chose between real options, and can say what you rejected and why.
I led. Others followed a direction you set: with or without authority over them.
I was accountable. You owned the outcome, including when it went wrong.
I reflected. You know what you would do differently, and why.
A report built from the top four rungs reads completely differently from one built from the bottom two, even when it describes the same projects.
A structure for a piece of evidence
Use these prompts to check whether your narrative explains the work clearly:
- Situation: enough context to understand the problem, and no more.
- Personal responsibility: what was yours, and what the limit of your authority was.
- Challenge: what made it difficult. Explain the constraints that required judgement.
- Options: what else could have been done.
- Decision: what you chose, and the basis.
- Action: what you did about it.
- Result: what happened, including if it was not what you expected.
- Reflection: what you would do differently.
- Attribute relevance, which areas this speaks to.
Check particularly that your responsibility, alternatives and reflection are clear.
The same fortnight, at three rungs of the ladder
Fictional example: contractor's engineer, retaining wall
I was involved in the construction of the reinforced concrete retaining wall, working with the site team to deliver the works safely and on programme.
I was responsible for the retaining wall. When the reinforcement arrived it was 1.4 m short on the starter bars for the second lift — the bending schedule had been cut to the wrong lap length. I could have accepted a lapped splice, which the designer would probably have approved, or waited four days for a new schedule. I checked the lap requirement myself, found that a lapped splice needed 62 diameters and we had 41, and rejected it. I asked for couplers instead, which we had on site for another element, and got the designer's agreement in writing before we placed anything. It cost half a day rather than four.
Between these two versions is the whole distance between 'I contributed' and 'I decided'. Nothing about the project changed: only the account of what the writer did within it. Note also that the stronger version contains a check the candidate ran themselves, which is what makes the decision defensible under questioning.
Writing habits that make evidence visible
Look for
- Use I where you mean I. It is the only way a reviewer can see you.
- Name the option you rejected. A decision with only one option in it is not a decision.
- Include the number, the date, the dimension. Specifics are what make an account believable.
- Say what went wrong. A report in which nothing ever went wrong is not credible.
- Say where your authority ended. Reviewers respect boundaries that are clearly stated.
- Keep it consistent with your CV and with what your sponsors will say.
Watch for
- Write 'we' throughout. This is the most common single fault in reports.
- Describe the project's achievements as though they were yours.
- Use the passive voice to avoid saying who did something: 'it was decided that'.
- Pad with background. Context is not evidence and it eats your word count.
- Claim more than you did. Fifteen minutes of questioning will find it.
- Use one project for everything. Reviewers look for breadth as well as depth.
Questions to ask yourself
- Could this sentence have been written by anyone else on the project?
If yes, it is not evidence about you. This one question fixes more reports than any other single edit.
- What is the decision in this paragraph?
If there is not one, ask whether the paragraph is earning its words.
- Would I be comfortable being asked about this for ten minutes?
Everything in the report and appendices is open to questioning. Anything you would rather they skipped is exactly where they will go.
- Does this match my CV?
Inconsistency between report, CV and sponsor statements is noticed, and it makes everything else look less reliable.
Official sources
Selected publisher pages were rechecked in September 2026. Other source records were last checked in July 2026. Open the latest official document before relying on a requirement.