Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with ICE before applying.
Supervising Civil Engineers are personally and professionally accountable to ICE for their Training Scheme responsibilities. Although employers nominate them, ICE makes their responsibility to the profession clear.
Getting the best out of a trainee
ICE's own list is a good one, and unusually human for a procedural document. Create an environment of reflective learning and give feedback. Continuously challenge them to achieve more. Make sure their existing skills are used in a cost-effective way. Identify opportunities that are mutually beneficial. Make them feel secure in tackling demanding new roles. Provide support and encouragement.
To which the practical addition is: notice the attribute they are not going to get. Almost every trainee will accumulate technical evidence naturally and will not accumulate commercial evidence naturally. The SCE who spots that in year two and arranges a package budget is worth more to that trainee than any amount of quarterly review.
The conflict you are there to manage
ICE says explicitly that you must be able to manage conflicts between the employer's needs and the trainee's need to achieve the attributes. In practice that conflict is almost always the same one: the trainee is good at something, so they keep being given that something, and their development narrows.
Resolving it is uncomfortable, because it means asking a delivery manager to give up a productive person for a secondment or a different package. It is also the part of the role that only the SCE can do, and it is the reason ICE says SCEs are responsible to the profession first.
Staying capable
ICE asks SCEs to keep up to date with best practice and changes in the scheme, to be aware of changes to ICE's routes to membership and the Professional Review requirements, and to maintain their own CPD record: noting that your role involves making sure trainees fulfil the CPD requirements, so you should lead by example.
There are also some administrative facts worth knowing: if you leave your employer you are removed from their list of SCEs after six months, and IPD Online access goes with it. If you have had no trainees for three years or more you are advised to contact your Membership Recruitment Team before accepting new ones. If you move to a different Approved Employer who wants you as an SCE, a new SCE application is required.
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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.