APC (candidates)

The Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) is the process by which RICS ensures candidates who wish to become members are competent to practise as chartered surveyors.

The APC requires you to complete practical experience, culminating in the final assessment interview, which assesses your 'competence to practise', or in other words, your competence to carry out the work of a qualified surveyor. In this context, to be 'competent' is to have the skill or knowledge to carry out a task or function successfully. This ability can vary from being ‘able’ to being an ‘expert’.

This section is maintained by Christina Hirst.

What is the APC?

Assessment for RICS membership

The APC includes the following components:

  1. work experience;
  2. passing the RICS online ethics module, including online training relating to the RICS Rules of Conduct, including ethical principles, and what these mean, reviewing real ethical scenarios and passing a 20-question multiple choice test; and
  3. the final assessment, including written submissions and an interview. A panel of three assessors will interview you for 1 hour, and assess whether you are competent to practise as an RICS member.

The Assessment Resource Centre (ARC) is the RICS online portal where you will manage your APC.

If you enrolled for the APC before 1 January 2017, you can continue to use your templates for your APC. If you enrolled after 1 January 2017 you will record all the information for your APC in the ARC.

There are 4 assessments to chartered membership of RICS. These are:

  • Assessment of Professional Competence (APC);
  • Senior Professional Assessment;
  • Specialist Assessment; and
  • Academic Assessment.

This section focuses on the APC. Candidates can follow the structured training or the non-structured training assessment, depending on eligibility.

Find out which is the most suitable route for your circumstances, then follow either the structured training or the non-structured training (also known as preliminary review) content to see your APC journey.