It is up to you to decide what Class and scope of assessment you apply for but you should carefully consider the limits of your competence as part of your decision.

CABE recommends that you seek the broadest possible certification so that you will not need to extend your certification at a later date to undertake a wider range of work, but only where you are confident that you are competent to do so. This is because as of 1 April 2024, unless you are working under the supervision of a suitably competent, registered building inspector, it is an offence to work beyond the Class and scope of certification you have used for registration purposes.

As part of the CABE Building Inspector Competence Assessment Scheme (CBICAS) you will need to be able to provide a range of evidence that you have the competence, including knowledge, skills and experience, to be undertaking the types of work you want to be assessed against. This means that you should carefully consider the following in deciding what Class of assessment and certification you apply for:

• the type of building work you are currently inspecting and what evidence you have that you are competent to undertake this work
• whether you have evidence of competence to inspect other types of building work, that you aren’t currently working on, but want to be certified to inspect in the future
• whether the Class and scope of any particular type of work described in the CBICAS Class and Scope matrix is beyond the limits of your competence to inspect; and
• whether you need further development or training to undertake a particular Class or scope of work.

CABE recommends that you do not seek certification if you are concerned that you cannot evidence your competence against any particular Class or scope of work. If that is the case, you should identify what supervised experience and training you require as part of your annual Personal Development Planning and seek certification once you can evidence competence in relation to that wider scope of work.

No. Tables published in the CABE Building Inspector Competency Framework (CABE BICoF) use RQF levels and associated qualifications to indicate the level of underpinning knowledge and understanding required for the grade of membership and Class of registration. Applicants can demonstrate this through a combination of formal qualifications, training and career experience which are evaluated to establish equivalence.

The Membership Team will check this as part of your Stage One application. For further advice, contact the Membership Team.

Stage One of the CBICAS process will ask you to provide an up-to-date CV, CPD record and a synopsis of your proposed Technical Report.

During Stage Two you will be asked to provide competency statements and a Technical Report to highlight your experiences and knowledge.

CABE is required by the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) to obtain specific information to identify candidates for certification and registration purposes. This includes the candidate’s National Insurance Number, which has to be included in weekly data returns to the BSR.

CABE would not normally request this information, but it is a legally binding requirement within our Terms and Conditions and CBICAS scheme approval criteria. We will not be able to certify applicants under the scheme unless they can comply with these requirements.

This information will not be used for any purpose other than compliance with the BSR scheme approval criteria.

Undertaking regular CPD is an important part of maintaining professional competence. It takes many forms and is not just about taking formal training courses. If you are unsure what counts as CPD, take a look at our CPD Guidance which provides examples of formal and informal CPD.

If after reading the guidance you do not feel that you have the required CPD, you will need to defer your application until you can meet this requirement.

Note: It is a condition of membership to undertake, and record, 35 hours of CPD a year (105 hours over three years).

"If relevant" primarily means that you should only be talking about projects/work you have undertaken that are relevant to your work as a Building Inspector.

If you have moved jobs recently from a similar sector, such as architecture or construction, and don’t have an extensive history of work in building control but your previous experience helps demonstrate your technical or professional competence, then this would also be relevant. So, in general, the project history is relevant if it helps substantiate your competence as a Building Engineer and Building Inspector.

The word count should be 200-300 words per sub-competence (i.e., A1, B2 etc.); the BSR requires assessment for every Building Inspector Competency Framework (BICoF) criterion that’s been incorporated into the CABE BICoF.

Existing members already at the level of CABE Membership they require in order to apply for the Class they need will complete a reduced competence set on the form (so will produce a smaller number of competence statements); however, EVERY applicant will be assessed and scored on ALL areas of the core competences at interview.

Firstly, approach your previous employer and see if you can get access to the records, or information, you feel you need. This may mean attending their premises and making notes, rather than having full digital access. If this is not possible, you may need to work under supervision for a period until you can build a suitable portfolio or consider a non-portfolio-based certification scheme, such as the LABC's Building Safety Competence Foundation.

If you decide to pursue your application through CBICAS with only some of the evidence required, please flag these circumstances in your Technical Report and covering email. Assessors will be trained in how to take these factors into account within reason, but if evidence is lacking this could result in the need to re-apply at a later date, or in a reduced Class or scope of certification.

More Info: Buillding Inspector Registration and Supervision

CBICAS is an experiential route to prove your competence, and as such we advise applicants to use projects for their Technical Report that are less than three years old, and no older than five years. This ensures that your project references current regulations and your memories are still fresh in your mind.

In exceptional circumstances, we will accept an older project, but you will need to ensure that you show an awareness, and address, the regulatory changes that have taken place during this time.

CBICAS can assess candidates with more specialised competence, but all candidates are expected to be able to demonstrate competence against a substantive range of the scope set out in each of the CBICoF Competence frameworks.

In practice, this means that candidates need to demonstrate awareness and understanding of inter-related areas of competence, particularly in terms of technical and procedural requirements. Where candidates do rely on narrow highly specialised evidence of competence it is up to them to work within the limits of their competence once certified and registered.

Clearly, there are a wide range of roles undertaken under the description of technical manager. Some technical managers will still have their own portfolio/case load of projects and continue to be actively involved on a day-to-day basis; others may have no direct project responsibility and act as a manager and mentor, allocating case load and supporting staff in resolving more complex or difficult procedural or technical issues.

The Technical Report should clearly outline, early on, what work the technical manager does and how their management function relates to the restricted activities and functions undertaken by their team. The Technical Report still needs to evidence technical competence for the Classes of registration (2 or 3) that the manager oversees, but this could be by reference to previous experience (i.e. prior to taking up a management role) or through on-going engagement and training on technical matters if that remains relevant.

If a technical manager still directly undertakes casework, then they should use examples from that case work in the Report.

It is also perfectly legitimate to use a mixture of evidence of their own case work and the case work of staff i.e. a combination of the two approaches above.

Naturally, there is an expectation that much of the evidence will be in the context of acting as a manager, and those applying for Class 4 registration should frame their report against the higher level of management and health safety competence required for Class 4 in the Building Safety Regulators Building Inspector Competence Framework (BICoF). These requirements are integrated into the CABE BICoF which has two grades of technical manager:

• Class 4 (2) – for technical managers managing teams dealing with only Class 2 building work; and
• Class 4 (3) – for technical managers managing teams undertaking both Class 3 building work or both Class 2 and 3 building work.

If they don’t undertake case work, they should use examples of how they have interacted with their team to help deliver compliant outcomes and discharge their building control duties. Typically, this will involve making reference to a much larger number of different projects/case studies (compared to a typical technical report which may typically reference one, two or three projects) undertaken by the staff they have managed and how the technical manager has engaged/influenced/supported their team in their work. They should feel free to borrow information from their staff projects to help evidence the examples they use in the report.

It is expected that technical managers will have the underlying technical competence equivalent to the Class of teams they manage, but this may be predicated on previous roles and experience. A Class 4 (3) technical manager will still be expected to demonstrate underlying experience, knowledge and understanding of Higher-Risk Buildings (HRB), or larger non-standard building types and undertake suitable activities to remain current in terms of regulatory and technical requirements etc albeit that this will likely be a smaller part of their day-to-day activity.

It is also accepted that technical competence in this respect will be delivered through managerial functions e.g. mentoring, risk management, managing and developing technical competence of teams, supporting resolution of complex technical issues, overseeing quality control checks and improving process etc.

No. The conceptualised framework allows you to be assessed against the categories that are relevant to you.

The BSR BICoF describes standard and non-standard construction in the following way:

‘Standard and non-standard building(s)
As part of the risk assessment/risk management approach the building control professional should identify if a building or project is standard or non-standard. The following examples are not exhaustive (for guidance only and to assist BCBs) and are possible indicators of standard and non-standard buildings. A standard building could cover common construction methods such as cavity masonry, timber frame, or solid masonry. Non-standard builds could include those buildings not fitting the notional set of common and long-established building methods, for example, modular construction, panel systems, or cross-laminated timber. Additionally, the building design or method of construction may not follow the Approved Documents (in part or in full) and/or any supporting standard(s) or code(s) that are directly referenced as part of the guidance in an Approved Document, during the building control approval process or during an inspection.’

We understand the BSR is working on further defining standard and non-standard. Our informal view is that standard forms of construction will typically be those types of construction that have been in common usage for a substantive period, so that their properties and performance are well understood and where their design and construction does not utilise innovative, highly complex or unusual approaches. A non-standard building will be any building that doesn’t meet the description for standard buildings. Non-standard may also need to consider lower-rise buildings with particularly vulnerable occupants, building work of a particularly large or unusual scale, or potentially intended for more dangerous uses. Categorisation will depend on the risk assessment carried out by a building control body. The intention is that building control bodies make sensible decisions in allocating inspection activities to suitably competent persons and record how those decisions are made.

All interviews will be online, and recorded for quality and training purposes, unless a justifiable request is made in line with CABE's Reasonable Adjustment Policy.

CABE has published fees for assessment, ongoing competence certification (annually) and for optional Engineering Council Registration. These can be viewed in the CBICAS Complete Guide for Classes 2, 3, and 4. 

Please note you will also have to pay a fee to join the BSR register. The BSR charges are outline on the HSE website.

If you are following the RICS route you can view the charges in the CBICAS Complete Guide for RICS Members.

If you hold professional membership with a recognised organisation, you can apply directly for CABE Membership and then apply for CBICAS.

Yes, you will need to attend a professional interview.

It is an important part of the peer-review process and ensures that you have an opportunity to expand on your competences and respond to any specific aspects of your competence statements with more detail.

Assessment panels will make a number of decisions as part of the combined assessment process. If members are upgrading, the panel can award a higher grade of membership even if the applicant does not then meet the requirements for either Engineering Council registration or a specific Class of registration.

The panel may also recommend a lower (but not higher) Class of certification, or modify the scope of certification in terms of types of building work covered.

No, ultimately there are two processes: CABE is approved to certify competence, but candidates will still need to register with the BSR through a separate application process.

The final decision whether to register an individual lies with the BSR, and therefore, CABE cannot guarantee what that decision will be. The expectation is that in all but exceptional circumstances certification by CABE will be accepted as adequate evidence for registration purposes.

The legal requirements for building control bodies to use the services of Registered Building Inspectors came into force on 6 April 2024. Building Inspectors have continued to register beyond this date.

Building Inspectors who registered as Class 1 before 6 April, could continue to work unsupervised during the transition period (transition deadlines were 6 July 2024 in England, 1 October 2024 in Wales), but had to evidence they were enrolled on a BSR Approved Competency Assessment Scheme before 6 April 2024. If by the end of the transition period, Building Inspectors had not passed a Competency Assessment Scheme, they had to work under supervision.

If you didn’t register before 6 April 2024, you must register with the BSR at Class 1 and work under supervision until you successfully pass a BSR-approved Competency Assessment Scheme. This applies in both England and Wales.

CABE has published a Professional Information Note on Building Inspector Registration and Supervision which provide further information on working under supervision.

No. Only CABE Members undertaking restricted building control activities and functions are legally required to register with the BSR.

Specialists such as structural engineers, or fire engineers, do not need to register with the BSR unless they undertake these restricted activities or functions.

A specialist undertaking restricted activities and functions must be registered at the Class applicable to the buildings that are being work on. If a building falls out of the scope of registration they must work under the supervision of a Registered Building Inspector at the appropriate class.

No. You can apply directly to the BSR for Class 1 registration without the need to submit additional evidence.

The CABE BICoF includes Class 1 trainee competence frameworks – these are equivalent to Technician (Tech CABE) and Associate (ACABE) membership. These have been developed to help individuals with less than three years’ building control experience to identify their competence level and help them to take the first steps on their journey to membership.

We offer a Class 4 assessment option, but registration at Class 4 with the BSR is voluntary.

A CBICAS candidate with Class 2 or Class 3 certification can decide to also register as a Class 4 Technical Manager. However, CABE recommends that CBICAS candidates request assessment against the Class 4 frameworks in CABE's Building Inspector Competence Framework (BICoF) which include higher levels of management and health and safety competence as set out in the BSR's BICoF.

Ultimately it remains for you to decide which Class of registration to declare to the BSR.

If you are unemployed/have not worked in building control for a number of years/have never worked in building control, the route you decide to take will be dependent on a number of factors. CABE recommends registering with the BSR at Class 1 and working under supervision for a period to build up access to case studies and to refresh your currency in practice. You can then apply for assessment through CBICAS or one of the other approved schemes for certification and registration at a higher class. CABE would expect employers to be sympathetic and supportive of this approach and recognise previous career experience in establishing conditions of employment.

If you believe that your skills, knowledge and understanding remain current, and you are able to access records for purposes of developing your Technical Report case study, you may prefer to apply for certification before going back into work. If that is the case, there is no reason why you cannot apply. Please indicate clearly in your personal statement which circumstances from the above apply to you, and provide information on your most recent employment. If you have problems obtaining supporters signatures, please contact the Membership Team to discuss your personal circumstances and agree a way forward.

If you do not have access to evidence to support development of your Technical Report case study and career portfolio, it may be that working at Class 1 for a while is necessary to develop this information. Alternatively, you may wish to consider an exam-based process such as LABC's Building Safety Competence Foundation which does not require preparation of a detailed portfolio and Technical Report supported by evidence.

Yes. Registration is based on demonstrating competence, not on your employment status.

No. Building Inspectors who are assessed under CBICAS will become members of a specialist section within CABE and will be required to maintain a professional logbook of their CPD activities on an annual basis.

We will be publishing further details in due course, but is envisaged that this logbook will form the basis of a revalidation submission that will also require a detailed reflective statement covering work, professional development and key lessons learnt over the previous four-year period. This will be peer-reviewed and scored through a desktop assessment. A percentage of CBICAS-certified individuals will also be called in for interview.