Principles underlying the development of competencies for engineers

In recent years the UK Health & Safety Executive, the Institution of Electrical Engineers and the British Computer Society have collaborated in the management of a project to produce a set of competencies for engineers working in the sensitive area of safety critical or safety related systems. The resulting document owed much to the existence of the international standard IEC 61508. The development of competency descriptors for those involved in the design and development of safety critical systems has led to some consideration of the properties of these competencies, and to principles that may be applied in a more general setting. This article aims to capture these thoughts.