In the last issue of Register News we talked about our concern regarding the high number of engineers missing out on the benefits of professional registration as Incorporated Engineers (IEng).  We also asked for volunteers to assist our new IEng marketing group and would like to thank all those who responded.

The group has now completed its initial project - carrying out a survey amongst IEngs to find out how they view the qualification and the process they went through to obtain it.  From this we have been able to start to think about some key messages and who the target audience should be. The full survey results can be found on the Extranet, but some of the key points are:

• The online surveys were distributed to registered IEngs by the PEIs, with results collected by the Engineering Council.
• 2720 IEngs completed the survey, representing 6% of the total 37,056 currently on the Engineering Council register.
• Those registered in the past two years were asked specific questions about the current registration process and their key motivation for becoming registered.  74% found the process straightforward, and commented on their institution's good practice.
• 79% value their IEng registration highly and 82% would recommend gaining IEng to colleagues.
• When asked to describe a typical IEng in one word, the most popular response was 'professional', accounting for 25% of the responses. 85% responses were positive although 5% felt IEng had no identity and a further 9% complained they were under-valued and frustrated.
• 1363 respondents offered further assistance.

This will be followed up with another short survey of institution members eligible for IEng but not registered, to ascertain why they either haven't applied for IEng or have started, but not completed, the registration process.  This will help the group to fill in some of the gaps in their knowledge and understanding, which in turn will help to make informed decisions as to the best marketing tools and channels to use for promoting the importance of this section of the register.