This page is for candidates preparing for Arup assessment centre interviews across engineering and design roles. You can read question excerpts on problem solving, project planning, stakeholder engagement, innovation and ethical dilemmas, and practise the follow-up questions that probe how you reached and justified your solutions.
1 pack · 30 question entries · all with model answers in the With answers edition · Global. Question excerpts from every pack are free to read below. Full packs from £23 for the questions or £25 with model answers.
Arup programmes can differ in stages and format by market and year. Read the stage, market and role on your Arup invitation, then compare them with the pack titles below before choosing.
1 pack · 30 question entries
Question excerpts · options, diagrams or other context may be omitted.
From Assessment Centre – Competency Interview Follow-Up Questions · With answers edition £25. Each answered question in that edition has a model answer like this one.
I worked outward from the most reliable sources to the least. In my final-year design project we had to propose a retrofit for a university teaching building that was overheating in summer. I began with the primary material in the brief, meaning the site data, drawings, survey results and the constraints that were non-negotiable, because everything else has to be consistent with those. Next came codified sources: the relevant design standards, regulations and published guidance for that asset type, which set the boundary of what would be acceptable rather than merely clever. Third, I used peer-reviewed literature and published case studies of comparable schemes, mainly to understand where similar approaches had failed and why. Fourth, and probably most valuable, I spoke to people. I sat down with the campus estates engineer and, later, with a facilities manager who actually ran the building, because practitioners know the constructability and maintenance issues that never appear in a paper. Where two sources disagreed, I did not average them; I worked out which had the more relevant context, then recorded the assumption I had made so that it could be challenged. I also kept a short list of what I could not verify, so the recommendation carried its own uncertainty honestly rather than presenting a single confident number.
Model answers are practice examples written for this catalogue, not the employer’s answers or scoring guidance. Compare the structure and level of detail, then answer with your own experience.
Our Arup pack includes questions such as 'What sources of information did you use to develop your solution?' and 'What areas of professional development are you currently focusing on, and why?' Recurring themes are problem solving, project planning, stakeholder engagement, innovation and ethical dilemmas, with follow-up questions that probe the reasoning behind your work.
Treat follow-up questions as invitations to show your method. Explain the problem, the sources and information you drew on, the options you considered, and why you chose the approach you did. Be specific about your own contribution, and expect the interviewer to probe the assumptions behind your answer.
Arup has one assessment centre pack here, so start with that. If you are short on time, begin with the themes where you feel weakest — problem solving, project planning, stakeholder engagement, innovation or ethical dilemmas — and work through the follow-up questions for each.
Our question banks are compiled from questions reported by candidates who took the actual recruitment assessments and interviews.
Packs are preparation material, not a prediction of your assessment questions. Model answers are practice examples, not the employer’s answers or scoring guidance. Check the question excerpts, role, market and stage before choosing a pack.
Every pack opens in your browser after purchase. The Questions edition has every question in the pack; the With answers edition adds a model answer to each answered question. Prices are in GBP. The full list of Arup packs is in the catalogue.
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