Building your career on strong foundations: why ethics and professional commitment matter

As a building engineer starting or progressing your career, it’s not just your technical skills that will define your success. In such a high-stakes industry, where lives and communities depend on the safety and quality of your work, your professional ethics are just as important as your engineering knowledge.

Richard Harral, Chief Executive of CABE, explains that building engineers must be empowered and confident to put the public’s interest first – even when cost, time, and contractual pressures make it difficult.

Why ethics matter in building engineering

At its core, professional ethics means being aware of how your decisions affect others. For building engineers, that means remembering that residents, communities, and future users of a building will live with the outcomes of your work.

Sometimes, engineers can feel detached from the end use of a project. But, as Richard points out, safety and long-term performance must remain front of mind:

“We have a big task to make sure that longer-term safety is a prominent piece in everyone’s thinking all the time.”

Grenfell tragically highlighted what can happen when safety and ethical standards are sidelined. Today, the profession must rebuild trust by putting ethics and responsibility back at the heart of every project.

Two levels of professional ethics

Building engineers should think about ethics at both:

• The individual level – having the awareness and confidence to raise issues, make responsible decisions, and seek solutions.
• The organisational level – ensuring the companies you work for foster a strong safety culture where ethical choices are supported, not undermined.

For jobseekers, this means looking for employers who genuinely prioritise safety and responsibility – and being ready to show in interviews how you would uphold these values.

The public interest test

One of the most important professional behaviours is applying the public interest test. This means balancing commercial demands with the wider impact on safety, sustainability, and accessibility.

Employers value candidates who can demonstrate that they understand these bigger responsibilities and won’t let short-term pressures outweigh long-term safety.

Knowing your limits

Another vital part of professionalism is recognising the limits of your competence. Being honest about what you can and cannot do isn’t a weakness – it’s a strength. Recruiters and employers look for engineers who show integrity and know when to seek advice, collaborate, or escalate an issue.

The Professional Commitment Framework

CABE’s Competence Framework is built around five pillars:

1. Working within codes of conduct
2. Managing and applying safe systems of work
3. Understanding sustainability principles
4. Maintaining competence through CPD
5. Acting ethically

For jobseekers, this framework can be a useful guide to shape your CV, your interview answers, and your ongoing professional development. Showing that you are aware of these expectations demonstrates commitment to becoming a trusted professional.

Standing out to employers

Employers in the built environment want more than technical capability – they want professionals who can be trusted with responsibility. In interviews and applications, consider how you can show:

• times when you made a decision based on safety or ethics;
• your awareness of the importance of public interest;
• how you keep your knowledge and skills up to date; and
• your willingness to ask for help or escalate issues when necessary.

Looking ahead

"It’s about giving people the confidence to raise risks responsibly" Richard concludes, "and understanding that you’re working within an important framework of expectations".

For building engineers entering or progressing in the profession, this is more than theory. It’s about building your career on strong ethical foundations, ensuring your work protects people, and proving to employers that you are a professional they can trust.