Professional engineers work in areas requiring specialist engineering knowledge – analysing, solving and managing complex engineering problems. They take responsibility for the largest engineering projects, sometimes worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Most professional engineers hold four-year Bachelor of Engineering (BE) university degrees.

Professional engineers are required to take far-reaching responsibility for engineering projects and programmes, including the reliability of materials and technologies, their integration into effective systems, and the interaction between the technical systems and their environments.

A professional engineer’s work involves understanding the requirements of clients and of society as a whole; working to optimise social, environmental and economic outcomes over the lifetime of the product or project; interacting effectively with the other disciplines, professions and people involved; and ensuring that the engineering contribution is properly integrated into the whole.

They are also responsible for interpreting technological possibilities for society, business and government, helping ensure that policy decisions recognise such possibilities, and that costs, risks, limitations and probable outcomes are properly understood.

The work of professional engineers is mainly intellectual. They are concerned with advancing technologies and applying them creatively and innovatively. They may work in researching and developing new engineering principles and technologies, advancing the practice of engineering, or devising or updating its governing codes and standards.

Professional engineers have a particular responsibility for ensuring that projects are soundly based in fundamental principles, and for understanding how new developments relate to established practice. A hallmark of a professional is the ability to break new ground in a responsible way.

Professional engineers take a disciplined, holistic approach to complex engineering. They must be able to offer alternatives, defining their risks and benefits, and using professional judgement to choose a workable optimum approach. They must be able to recognise, assess and manage risks to clients, users, the community and the environment.