Ask a referred candidate what they would redo and the Summary of Experience comes up more than anything else. It is the written core of your submission: the document where you claim each competency at a level, and the script your interview panel will question you against.
It is also weirdly under-explained. The official guidance tells you what it is; almost nobody shows you what good looks like. This guide covers both, using the current requirements from the RICS Candidate Guide (August 2026 edition).
What the Summary of Experience is
For every competency you declare, you write a statement of how you meet it at the required level. The statements live on the RICS Assessment Platform, go to your assessors before the interview, and shape most of the 60 minutes that follows. Assessors may only question you on your declared competencies and stated experience, which means this document effectively writes their question sheet.
One useful distinction before going further, because candidates mix these up constantly. On structured training routes you also keep a diary (your working record of day-to-day experience) which feeds a logbook (days recorded against technical competencies, submitted with your final package). The Summary of Experience is neither: it is the written argument that your experience reaches the declared levels. Diary and logbook prove time; the Summary of Experience proves competence.
The current word limits
The August 2026 Candidate Guide sets two totals:
- 1,500 words maximum across all mandatory competencies.
- 4,000 words maximum across all technical (core and optional) competencies.
There are no official per-competency or per-level limits, only these totals. RICS counts only the text in the Summary of Experience column of the template, including any references you cite there. You will see rules of thumb online (around 150 words per mandatory competency, for instance): sensible arithmetic, but a third-party convention rather than an RICS rule, so spend your words where your strongest claims are.
The ceilings are tight by design. On the QS pathway you are covering eleven mandatory competencies inside 1,500 words and eight technical competencies inside 4,000. Padding is impossible; every sentence has to carry evidence.
What each level requires
The guide is specific about what a statement at each level must do:
- Level 1 is a statement of learning: how you gained the knowledge and understanding, which should connect to entries in your CPD record.
- Level 2 is a statement of the range of experience you achieved, with at least one real project example of you applying that knowledge.
- Level 3 is a detailed statement of the advice you personally gave, with at least one real example, and it carries the most weight in assessment.
For a competency declared at Level 3 your summary needs to cover all three layers: what you know, what you did, and what you advised. Our guide to what the three levels actually mean goes deeper on the distinction, because misjudging it is the single most common Summary of Experience failure.
A structure that reads as competent
We teach candidates to write every substantive entry with the STARA structure:
- Situation or task: the project and the issue, in a sentence.
- Action: what you specifically did, with methods and standards.
- Result: the measurable outcome (cost, time, risk, value).
- Advice: for Level 3, the options you analysed, what you recommended, and why.
The reason for the final A is blunt: assessors are looking for advice they can trace to you, and most first drafts bury it. Compare the same experience written three ways:
Level 1 register: "I understand the principles of interim valuations and when each approach applies."
Level 2 register: "I prepared monthly interim valuations on Project X, agreeing measured progress with the contractor's surveyor."
Level 3 register: "I analysed two approaches to valuing the disputed variation on Project X and advised the client to certify on a measured basis, which avoided an estimated £40k overpayment."
Same underlying competence area, three different claims. Your written level needs to match the level you declared, sentence by sentence.
The mistakes that cost sittings
Four patterns come up repeatedly in assessor-trainer commentary on referrals:
- Level 2 evidence under a Level 3 heading. Doing something well is Level 2. Advising someone, with options and reasoning, is Level 3. Our competency levels guide includes a quick verb test for catching this in your own drafts.
- Generic statements. "I regularly attend client meetings and communicate effectively" claims nothing an assessor can test. Specifics (a named situation, your action, an outcome) are what read as real.
- Contradictions with the case study. Assessors read both documents. If your case study and your Summary of Experience describe the same project differently, expect the interview to start there.
- Written by someone else, or something else. Submissions must be your own work. RICS prohibits using generative AI to produce submission content and runs plagiarism and AI-detection checks on everything. Beyond the rules, the panel questions you on what is written; borrowed words collapse under live questioning.
Making it manageable
The Summary of Experience rewards little and often. Candidates who keep a structured record as they work draft entries from live material; candidates who start in the month before submission reconstruct from memory, and it shows.
If you want the full method (the capture habit, the STARA write-ups, and worked examples at each level), the APC Playbook sets it out for £25, and the curriculum shows how the Cohort Programme builds your Summary of Experience with structured feedback along the way. Not sure whether your current draft is pitched right? The free APC Readiness Check gives you an honest read on your evidence in three minutes.