In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with ICE before applying.
You need two sponsors, including a lead sponsor with a substantial mentoring role. Finding that lead sponsor is the most common cause of a delayed application.
Finding a lead sponsor
ICE's Career Appraisal guidance says you are responsible for finding suitable sponsors. This can be difficult if you do not work directly with ICE members. It suggests:
- Check colleagues and contacts who may already be members and know your work.
- Search the ICE members' directory by name, grade, location or employer.
- Attend ICE events in your region to meet members.
- Contact ICE for advice if you cannot find someone suitable.
The guidance warns that an application can be delayed considerably without suitable sponsors. Identify them well before applying. ICE suggests doing this at Career Appraisal stage, which may be a year or more before review.
How to ask, and what to give them
- 01
Ask early, in person, and be specific
Explain that being lead sponsor carries a duty to mentor you, review your report, advise on the presentation and arrange practice interviews. Someone who agrees without knowing that will be an unhappy sponsor in four months.
- 02
Send them the current statement of support
Not last year's copy, and not your description of it. The form carries the eligibility criteria and tells them what they are being asked to confirm.
- 03
Give them your dates
Your target session, the sponsor deadline, and when you will send your draft. Their deadline is before yours.
- 04
Give them something to react to
A CV and a report draft. Asking a sponsor for feedback with nothing written puts the work back on them.
- 05
Confirm they have uploaded
Before you upload your own application. ICE makes this your responsibility explicitly.
- 06
Keep them informed afterwards
They will want to know the result, and if it goes badly they are the person ICE expects you to discuss the reviewers' comments with.
Questions to ask yourself
- Is my lead sponsor registered at the right grade?
ICE Member or Fellow and Engineering Council registered at your grade or above. Both parts. A very senior colleague who is not registered does not qualify.
- Does my lead sponsor know the current process?
Someone who qualified fifteen years ago may be advising you on the Written Exercise, which no longer exists: the written element is now the Communication Task, with its own current rules.
- Will my sponsors say the same things about me as my report does?
Sponsors give their own account. Inconsistency between it and your report is noticed.
- Have I asked too late?
If the answer is possibly, ask today. It is the one part of the application that depends entirely on someone else's diary.
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.