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RICS APC Lifeline – BRAND New Pathway Guides



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What is this blog about?


In this week’s blog, we look at the brand new RICS APC pathway guides published in December 2025.

 

What’s new?

 

RICS have made minor formatting and proof reading changes to the overview pathway guide.

 

Apart from this, the major change that you need to be aware of is on page 1, relating to ‘choosing your competencies’.


 

What has changed in relation to choosing your competencies?

 

There has always been some confusion relating to competency choices, particularly where candidates can take a mandatory competency as a higher level technical competency.

RICS have dealt with this confusion by updating the overall pathway guide, as well as the individual pathway specific guides.

 

Your competency choice needs to be directed by what you to day to day at work. It should not be aspirational or based on your degree subject. Selecting the competencies that align most closely to your work will help you to demonstrate knowledge, doing (level 2) and advice (level 3).

 

RICS provide guidance on competency choice as follows:

 

  • If your pathway includes a core technical competency required to level 1, then you can select this competency to level 2 or 3 as an optional technical competency (provided that this is permitted by the pathway guide). For example, under the Building Surveying pathway, candidates must select the level 1 core technical competency Fire Safety. However, Fire Safety is also on the optional technical competency list and can thus be selected to a higher level.


  • If your pathway includes a core technical competency required to level 2, then you cannot select this competency to level 3 as part of your optional technical competency selection.


  • Some pathways have mandatory competencies that can be taken to a higher level as a core or optional technical competency. The mandatory competency choices that this applies to will be grouped together in one list. This means that you can only select ONE of these mandatory competencies as a higher level core or optional technical competency. You CANNOT select all of them to a higher level core or optional technical competency – because of the use of the word OR in the list. You will find an example of this in the Commercial Real Estate pathway guide. However, in the Building Control pathway guide, you will find two mandatory competencies listed together with an OR – Client Care and Data Management, whereas Sustainability is listed separately. This means that a candidate could select either Client Care OR Data Management AND Sustainability – as the latter is listed separately.


  • Finally, some pathways allow you to select at least one competency from the full list of technical competencies in the overall pathway guide. This includes the requirements for all pathways, not just your chosen pathway. If this applies, then you can ONLY select a mandatory competency if it is listed as a core or optional technical competency in the pathway guide. If it is grouped with other mandatory competencies in an OR list, as explained above – then you can only select it if no other mandatory competency in the OR list has already been selected.

 

Confused?

 

If you are confused, then please get in touch via email (jen@property-elite.co.uk) with your list of prospective competency choices.

 

We can double check these for you and confirm that your choices are valid. Also, make sure you run through your competency choices with your Counsellor, as they should be familiar with the new RICS clarification on competency choice.

 

Also make sure that you are always referring to the latest RICS pathway guides. If you search on Google, the old ones will still come up – so it is best to always download them from the source (RICS website) and check that the date on the front says December 2025.

 

RICS can reject your submission for including invalid competency choices – so it is vitally important to get them right. If your submission is rejected, then you are likely to be asked to resubmit in the next assessment window – which will add around 6 months extra to your APC journey.

 

So, get the right advice and get it right first time!


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Stay tuned for our next blog post to help build a better you.


N.b. Nothing in this article constitutes legal, professional or financial advice.


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