I think they might be common to the bigger companies, my company had a grading system 1,2,3, but from what I could fathom out, it was not done by examination as to what you new technically, but it was done by questioner and interview, it was done more to what your general attitude was to your colleagues and customers and man ament in general, 94% where grade two a few about3% were grade three the bad boys, there were very few grade three! when you drew Aline through the pay grades they appeared to overlap some what and differed by a few pounds only. I think this prevented to much moaning. (I should have said there where very few grade 1 engineers.)