Engineers - chartered?

[saltybroad]

For the engineers on the forum:

My hubby is a PEng (USA), and MIPENZ. Does chartered status greatly increase employment and income opportunities? If you personally have attained chartered status, did it advance your career as much as you had hoped, or do you wish you hadn't bothered?

Any advice/opinions are welcome - good, bad, or ugly.

Andrea

[Duncan74]

I never bothered with chartership in the UK as in my field it made no difference. I'm sure this wouldn't have been the case if I'd been in structural for instance, but on the Transport side then non chartered membership was fine and my MSc made more of a difference (in that I learnt useful things).

However over here then I'm currently working towards my chartership. Be aware that IPENZ chartership requires reviewing every 5 years. The UK ICE chartership requires a commitment to ongoing training, but no formal resubmisison. Not sure about the US system, but it's worth consideration of gaining chartership with your 'home' organisation if that fits with where your experience has been gained.

[ralf-nz]

It hugely depends on the field one is working in and also on the specific role(s).

In my experience the majority of engineers in general here are not chartered. This applies in particular to electrical, fire and mechanical. Structural are more often chartered than not as there are certain tasks where being chartered is compulsory or very advantageous. Civil is some where in between.
Generally chartered engineers work in consultancies; only seldom they are employed by local authorities or even contractors. Within consultancies it is more asked for in design than in monitoring.

In summary it does not increase job and salary greatly in general but to a certain amount in specific roles.

[saltybroad]

Thanks for the opinions guys. There really isn't much of a system in the US, (it's very fragmented, as the states regulate this individually) and the only status that requires licensing is Professional Engineer - which, again, has different requirements depending on the state you reside/practice in. So the concept of chartership was novel to us - greatly appreciate the second and third (and any more that may be forthcoming) opinions!