There is no official RICS question bank, and anyone selling you one is selling guesswork. What does exist is better: published guidance on how the interview is structured, how assessors are trained to question, and consistent reporting from candidates and trainers about the themes that dominate QS interviews. Put those together and the hour stops being a mystery.
How the hour actually runs
The final assessment is a 60-minute interview before a panel of two or three chartered assessors, one acting as chairperson. In the UK it is currently conducted online over approved video technology. The published structure, described by RICS as a guide with some flexibility:
- 10 minutes: your case study presentation.
- 10 minutes: questions on the presentation.
- 30 minutes: discussion of your experience, technical competencies and CPD.
- 10 minutes: the chairperson's questions (professional practice, Rules of Conduct, mandatory competencies) and close.
The chair controls timing tightly, and the interview runs to exactly an hour. A few practical rules candidates are sometimes surprised by: you must keep camera and microphone on throughout, the chair will ask you to pan your room through 360 degrees before starting, and once your presentation questions finish, all notes and materials go out of sight. You may screen-share slides for the presentation, and you should be ready to deliver it without them if the technology misbehaves. Expect the panel to give you the last word before the close.
You get at least two weeks' notice of your slot, and the result arrives within five working days.
How assessors are trained to question
The assessor guidance repays reading, because it tells you the shape of every question before it is asked:
- Questions track your declared competencies and levels. Panels may only assess what you declared, at the level you declared it, grounded in your stated experience. Your Summary of Experience is effectively the panel's source material, which is why writing it at the right level matters so much.
- Open questions, one at a time. Assessors are trained to ask "how did you approach...", "what problems did you encounter", "what would you do differently", "what if...", then follow up on your answers. Prepared speeches survive the first question and rarely the second.
- Level 3 questioning probes the road not taken. Expect "what were the alternatives" and "why did you reject them" on any advice you claim. If you cannot argue the option you advised against, the claim weakens.
- Marking is holistic, and the interview carries the most weight. Assessors weigh the questioning first, the presentation second and the written submissions last; the guidance notes a good interview can overcome weaker submissions. Nerves are expected and allowed for. What is being judged is whether you demonstrated competence at the declared level.
- Ethics is the exception to everything. Ethics, Rules of Conduct and Professionalism is the one mandatory competency at Level 3, the chair must devote time to it, and failing it alone means referral, however strong the rest of the hour was.
The themes QS candidates report most
RICS does not publish questions, so treat what follows as consistently reported by candidates and training providers rather than official. That said, the pattern is stable across years and it maps to the core competencies:
- Your numbers. Walk us through your cost plan. How did you value that variation? How did you deal with the interim application you mentioned? Expect your own examples to be pushed a level deeper than you wrote them.
- Procurement and tendering. Which route did you recommend and why? What would have changed your recommendation?
- Contract practice. Mechanisms under the contract you actually used: relevant events and matters, liquidated damages, notices, what happens on contractor insolvency.
- Ethics scenarios. Gifts and hospitality, conflicts of interest, pressure to backdate or adjust figures, acting outside your competence, confidentiality. The strong answers name the relevant Rule of Conduct, state your obligations, describe your actions and say when you would escalate.
- Current awareness. What is happening in the market and the profession, and how it touches your projects.
The hot topics in 2026
Current awareness questions reward candidates who can connect events to their own work. As of August 2026, the topics worth having a position on:
- Building safety. The Building Safety Regulator became a standalone body in January 2026, Gateway 2 approval performance has been improving through the year, and a Building Safety Levy starts in England on 1 October 2026. If you work on residential schemes, know how the gateways and the levy touch your projects.
- JCT 2024. Now the only current edition, after the 2016 suite was withdrawn from sale in March 2026. Know the headline changes relevant to your projects: building safety provisions, collaborative working, new relevant events, target cost option.
- The Procurement Act 2023. Fully live since February 2025 for public work in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland keeps its own regime): award on Most Advantageous Tender, the competitive flexible procedure, transparency notices and 30-day payment terms through the chain.
- Sustainability and carbon. The RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment standard (2nd edition) is mandatory for members carrying out WLCAs, and the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard published its first full version in March 2026. Cost consultants are increasingly asked to price carbon alongside cost.
- Responsible use of AI. RICS's first AI professional standard became mandatory for members and regulated firms on 9 March 2026. Its core principle, that AI assists professional practice and the surveyor remains accountable, is a very likely ethics-adjacent question. Note that using generative AI to write your own submission is prohibited and checked.
- Market conditions. Tender price inflation has been running at roughly 3% annually (BCIS, mid-2026), construction insolvencies remain the highest of any sector even while easing, and materials prices rose about 6% in the year to June 2026. Know the numbers that touched your own cost advice, and be ready to date them.
Do not memorise a briefing pack. Pick the three topics nearest your projects and prepare to discuss them from your own experience, with a view. That is what "current awareness" means at Level 3.
Preparing for the hour
Three preparation habits separate comfortable candidates from referred ones. Know your submission line by line, because every question starts from it. Rehearse aloud, under time, with someone pushing follow-ups; written preparation does not build spoken performance. And drill ethics until your answer structure is automatic, because that is the one area with no partial credit.
A full mock interview with structured feedback is the highest-value single session in APC preparation, which is why the Cohort Programme ends with one, panel-style, before the real thing. If you are earlier in the journey, start by measuring where you stand: the free APC Readiness Check takes three minutes and will tell you whether interview performance is your priority gap or something else is. The case study guide covers the document your first twenty minutes are built on.