What Is a SQEP in Singapore Cybersecurity Projects? A Procurement Guide

The direct answer

SQEP stands for Suitably Qualified and Experienced Person. It is a competence concept, not a Singapore licence or certification in its own right: a SQEP is someone whose formal qualifications and hands-on project experience are sufficient for them to be trusted with a specific role or task. In Singapore government and Critical Information Infrastructure (CII) ICT tenders, agencies are increasingly writing SQEP-style language into requirements to make sure the people actually delivering the work — not just the company name on the cover page — can be shown to be competent. There is no single Singapore register of "SQEP consultants"; procurement teams instead need to verify competence through a combination of licensing status, certifications, ISO management-system scope and named CVs.

What regulators and frameworks expect

The term SQEP does not appear as a defined status under Singapore's Cybersecurity Act or the Monetary Authority of Singapore's guidelines. What does appear, repeatedly, is the same underlying expectation: that people performing security-critical work are demonstrably qualified and experienced for the task. Four Singapore sources matter most to procurement teams drafting or evaluating tender requirements.

Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA)

CSA has launched a licensing framework for penetration testing and managed SOC monitoring providers, administered by the Cybersecurity Services Regulation Office (CSRO), with the regime intended to protect consumers by ensuring high provider standards. The licensing framework took effect from 11 April 2022 under Part 5 of the Cybersecurity Act. To obtain a licence, applicants must supply information relating to the qualification or experience of the applicant (for individuals) or key officers (for business entities) relating to the licensable cybersecurity service for which a licence is sought. Firms providing penetration testing or managed SOC monitoring services in Singapore, whether directly or as sub-contractors, are expected to hold a valid CSRO licence for that specific service, and it is CSA's intent to publish a list of licensees online, through which consumers could be encouraged to procure licensable cybersecurity services from cybersecurity service providers who are licensed. This licensee list is the single most direct way to check a vendor's standing for penetration testing or managed SOC work before award.

Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)

For financial institutions and their vendors, the MAS Technology Risk Management Guidelines set the tone. FIs need to ensure that each vendor is qualified and able to meet the FIs' project requirements and deliverables, and the level of assessment and due diligence of vendors should be commensurate with the criticality of the project deliverables. The Guidelines also refer directly to the use of IT security specialists or qualified security consultants in the context of security testing and validation of software applications. In practice, this means MAS-regulated entities — and by extension their technology and cybersecurity suppliers — are expected to be able to show who is doing the security-critical work and on what basis they are considered qualified for it.

Where GeBIZ fits in

GeBIZ is the Singapore Government's one-stop e-procurement portal for any supplier to access the public sector business opportunities, and the public sector's ICT procurement opportunities via invitations for quotations and tenders are posted on GeBIZ. It is on GeBIZ that agencies increasingly specify named-personnel, qualification and experience requirements directly in the tender documents — sometimes using the SQEP term explicitly, sometimes describing the same expectation in other words (for example, "suitably qualified and experienced staff" or minimum years of relevant experience per role). Procurement teams should treat these clauses as binding evaluation criteria, not boilerplate.

ISO/IEC 27001

ISO/IEC 27001, the international standard for information security management systems, requires certified organisations to determine and evidence the competence of personnel whose work affects the performance of the management system, based on their education, training and experience. A vendor's ISO 27001 certificate is therefore relevant evidence of a documented competence process — but only for the scope actually covered by the certificate. Buyers should check the certificate's statement of applicability and scope, not just the logo, since certification for one service line does not automatically extend to another.

How to prepare and verify SQEP standing before award

Because SQEP is not a single Singapore credential, verification has to be assembled from several pieces of evidence. A procurement officer typically verifies this by cross-checking the named CVs, certificates and licence numbers submitted in the bid against independent registers — the CSA licensee list, the relevant certification body's register for any ISO 27001 claim, and professional body records for named certifications — rather than accepting the tender narrative on its own. The following steps give a procurement or security lead a defensible basis for evaluating a vendor's claim to be "suitably qualified and experienced" before a contract is signed.

1. Check licensing status against the specific service. If the tender involves penetration testing or managed SOC monitoring, confirm the vendor (and any named sub-contractor) holds a current CSRO licence for that exact service — a general cybersecurity licence does not cover both.
2. Request named CVs mapped to tender roles. Ask for the qualifications, certifications and years of directly relevant project experience of the individuals who will actually deliver the engagement, not the company's collective headcount.
3. Verify the scope of any ISO 27001 certificate. Ask for the certificate schedule and statement of applicability, and confirm it covers the service being tendered, the relevant sites, and the time period.
4. Ask how competence is documented and refreshed. A credible vendor should be able to describe how it records training, certifications and continuing professional development for the staff it proposes to assign, and how it re-assesses this over time.
5. Cross-check sector-specific expectations. For MAS-regulated engagements, confirm the vendor understands the proportionality principle in the TRM Guidelines and can evidence a qualified-consultant basis for any security testing work.
6. Write SQEP evidence into the contract, not just the tender response. Include a clause requiring notice and re-verification if named personnel change during delivery, and retain the right to request updated competence evidence during the contract term.

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How Infracom helps

Infracom Consultancy Integration Pte Ltd is a Singapore cybersecurity consultancy established in 2008, ISO 27001 certified with SQEP services in scope, and a CREST Pathway+ Organisation licensed by CSA's Cybersecurity Services Regulation Office. We help agencies and CII operators define SQEP-style requirements at tender stage, and help vendors evidence their own competence — qualifications, experience and documentation — against those requirements before award. For details on how we support SQEP evaluation and provision, see our SQEP services page.