Information for all areas of the Senior Professional Assessment to ensure a seamless journey on all the requirements to complete your submission and achieve professional membership with RICS.
The RICS submission is defined into the following key areas:
Senior Professional Application Guide – All Senior Professional candidates must use and download.
Employment History
All candidates must show their full employment history relevant to their pathway and surveying profession. The purpose is to document your career progression and key responsibilities to demonstrate how your work has contributed to achieving the required competencies.
All currently enrolled candidates can access the Assessment Platform to update their full employment history.
Minimum years required per route:
Tip: Complete your full/entire career history relevant to the pathway and surveying profession. This can show progression, and how you become a senior professional.
When requesting and adding new employers. This can take up to 5-days business days to be updated on the RICS Assessment Platform. Ensure this is done before any assessment windows are opened to avoid missing out.
Adding Current and Past Employer (Employment)
All candidates should provide all employment details relevant to the pathway. This can include full-time, part-time, secondment, contract, or self-employment.
For each entry, you must input and provide.
Senior Professional Applicant Guide - Page reference: 7
Each case study needs to be between 1,000 and a maximum of 1,500 words and must be on a defined project that you have been personally involved in the three years (36 months) prior to your assessment submission date.
All case studies should provide evidence of your senior profile, and relevance of your experience to the pathway and the mandatory competencies, especially ethics, rules of conduct and professionalism.
Global Assessment Dates and Process
Case study on senior professional competence (case study 1)
1,000-1,500 words covering a project that demonstrates your experience against the leadership, managing people and managing resources competencies.
Do not reuse any competencies from Case study 2 or Case study 3, with the exception of ethics, rules of conduct and professionalism.
Case study on technical competence 1 (case study 2)
1,000-1,500 words covering a project that demonstrates your experience against a minimum of two core technical competencies selected for your pathway. You must demonstrate at least one competency required to Level 3 as stated in the pathway guide.
Do not reuse competencies from Case study 1 or Case study 3, with the exception of ethics, rules of conduct and professionalism.
Case study on technical competence 2 (case study 3)
1,000–1,500 words covering a project that demonstrates your experience against a minimum of two technical competencies (different from other case study) selected for your pathway.
Do not reuse competencies from Case study 1 or Case study 2, with the exception of ethics, rules of conduct and professionalism.
Important Information
Each case study will include a mixture of mandatory, technical and senior professional competencies. Your choice of project(s) is very important and must reflect your specific sector pathway. It must be based on a defined project you have been personally involved in in the last 36 months at the point of submission.
Senior Professional Applicant Guide – Page reference: 3, 4
The case study is structured into the following key sections:
As a requirement, please ensure you use the correct and updated Case Study template downloaded from the Assessment Platform.
Title
In this section, you should provide a name to distinguish the project. Example:
Case Studies
A brief overview of the key issues
In this section, you should give context to your understanding of these issues and identification.
An account of your role/personal involvement
In this section, you can reference and show the management, senior profile and role you played.
An outline of some of the problems faced and the experience you have used to resolve these problems
In this section, you should describe the problems, why they were problems, how you were able to resolve these problems with your professional experience at a senior level.
A note of the outcome and successful delivery with emphasis on the role you played
In this section, you should further show your understanding of what you did and how you contributed to the project.
Word Count
This minmum 1,000 to 1,500 words maximum is for the content written. Sections that are excluded from the total word count are; Project Name, Date of Project, Confidentiality Statement, Table of Contents, Competencies Demonstrated and Appendix.
Put any charts, graphs and table into the appendices to maximise the word count available.
Aim to use 95% - 100% of the allowable 1,500 (1,425 – 1,500 words) allocation to showcase your skills and experience.
Competencies Demonstrated
Your case study will include a mixture of Senior Professional, Technical and Mandatory competencies. You must list the competencies that you believe are demonstrated in your case study.
Additionally, you can bold the competency name in the written case study. This will make it easier for you, the counsellor and the assessing panel to review the written content.
It's typical for a candidate in each case study to demonstrate further technical and mandatory competencies that are relevant to the project, this is important to help demonstrate your experience and seniority to the pathway. A case study may demonstrate a total of 3-7 competencies.
Appendix
You may insert illustrations, charts, graphs, photographs or plans to this section. Please keep the attachments to a minimum, ensuring they are relevant to the case study.
Review the Senior Professional Applicant Guide for more details regarding the case study. Additionally, seek your counsellor to support the written content, context and suitability for the Assessment.
Please visit our page Recording CPD Activities for Candidates for more details.
Please visit our page Senior professionals, specialists and academics for more details on submission requirements.
Please visit our page Assessment applications for more details on checklists.
Now more than ever, professionalism matters.
You are required to successfully complete the RICS Professionalism module prior to the assessment. The module includes four e-learning modules and a test that all candidates must pass not longer than 12 months before submitting for final assessment to be eligible to submit for Assessment.
In the e-learning modules, you will learn about the five Rules of Conduct, which support positive change in the built and natural environments by promoting and enforcing the highest ethical standards in valuation, the development and management of land, real estate, construction, and infrastructure.
As a candidate, you must also pass the Ethics Test, a 20-question multiple-choice test that tests your understanding of what you are learning. Your understanding of professionalism, ethics, and practice will also be tested during the Final Assessment Interview.
Before the Final Assessment Interview
There will be a significant emphasis on the Rules of Conduct, professional practice and ethics in the interview, so you must familiarise yourself with the Rules. Please remember, you can be referred on this area alone.
It will be important to review the Professionalism module again prior to your interview.
Note: The Assessment panel will look for opportunities to discuss ethical issues throughout the interview.
Pages to review and understand:
When applying for your APC, SPA, Specialist or Academic assessment, you are required to provide the details of three Chartered Surveyors who support your application to be elected as a Chartered Surveyor should you be successful at assessment.
Who can be a proposer or seconder?
MRICS or FRICS members who are willing to propose and recommend you, from personal knowledge and or careful enquiry, to be elected to RICS should you be successful at interview.
When nominating a member to act as your proposer or seconder, you should first reach out to the Member directly. Once they have agreed to act as either the proposer and seconder, should you request their nominate them through the Assessment Platform.
Process of proposer and seconder nomination and approval
Candidates are required to nominate their chosen Proposers and Seconders on the Assessment Platform. The nominated proposer or seconder will have the option to accept or deny this request on the RICS Assessment Platform.
If a proposer or seconder declines a request to support your application, you will have the option to add a new request.
Best practice: Do not nominate or request support from members you have not previously connected with, have advised a conflict of interest, or randomly selected from the member portal. Candidates may be in breach of misuse of nominated Proposer and Seconder request and referred to RICS Regulations.
All UK and MENA candidates
If you are based in either the UK or MEA regions, you must complete the Intent to submit form, which opens three weeks prior to the assessment submission window. This is where you indicate that you will be applying for your assessment at the next session.
If you do not complete the intent to submit form, the submission window on the assessment platform will not open for you and you will not be to apply. The intent to submit form must be completed by all candidates, including those on an apprenticeship programme.
This helps to cross reference all entry points for the end point assessment. Please remember to check your Junk and Spam folders for assessment related communication; RICS do not have any control over receipt of your email preferences.
When you complete your Intent to Submit you need to make sure you are on the right pathway, route and have your correct counsellor details, these will be the basis for your assessment.
Important: When submitting the Intent to Submit form, please ensure your pathway, route, and counsellor are correct. Once it is submitted, this information cannot be changed.
Please visit our page Assessment dates and process for more details.
All SPA Candidates
Senior Professional Applicant Guide – Page Reference: 9, 10
All candidates must complete and pass the final assessment interview to be elected to MRICS. All final assessments will be conducted online through MS Teams.
The interview will be conducted by a panel of assessors comprising a minimum of two (maximum three) RICS chartered professionals, trained and selected for this role.
The interview will last approximately one hour and is designed to determine whether you are a senior professional, and:
Review the following:
SPA Interview structure (60 minutes)
Your personal introduction where you will be given the opportunity to brief the panel on your background and career history, based on the application you submitted. |
10 minutes |
Discussion of your case studies and wider experience to include leadership, managing people and managing resources. There will also be discussion of wider professional issues including ethics. |
50 minutes |
Total |
60 minutes |
Candidate’s presentation (personal introduction) – 10 minutes
All candidates must prepare and deliver a presentation that goes for exactly 10 minutes. You will give a presentation to the assessment panel based on the application you submitted.
Under no circumstances must you record, or attempt to record, any element of the video call or interview. Any knowledge or suspicion of your recording, or attempting to record, the video call or interview may result in the interview being terminated and we may refer the matter for further investigation that could result in disciplinary action being taken against you. In addition, your status as an RICS candidate may be impacted including potential removal from the assessment process pending the outcome of the investigation.
Results and outcome
Senior Professional Applicant Guide – Page Reference: 12
You will receive your results after 5 working days (7 calendar days)
Pass result: if the outcome is a pass, steps and instructions will be detailed via email for payment, election and fees to MRICS.
Referral result: If the outcome is a referral you will be sent a referral report within 21 days of the result explaining why the assessors reached this decision.