Southeastern Arctic Shores Assessment

TL;DR: After you apply to Southeastern, you're invited by email to an Arctic Shores assessment: a set of short interactive tasks that Southeastern says takes 15 to 20 minutes. You can do it on a computer, phone or tablet, take breaks between tasks, and you get a personal feedback report at the end. Next comes a structured interview (some roles also have an assessment centre), and Southeastern publishes its core question bank in advance. For station staff, conductors and trainee drivers, passing the interview puts you in a talent pool. When a job opens in your area, you go on to the medical and agree a start date. Arctic Shores reads how you behave in the tasks rather than marking right answers, so practice mainly removes the surprise of the format.

Southeastern's own sources for this page are its recruitment process page and the Arctic Shores candidate information sheet linked from it, dated September 2025. The steps differ by role, so trust your invitation over this guide.

The stages, in order

Southeastern's accessible recruitment process PDF lists its standard steps. Not every role uses every step.

1. Online application. You apply on Southeastern's careers site. Its application guidance says hiring managers see an anonymised CV built from your profile, not the CV you upload. The application questions matter most: answer each one with a specific example, and don't write "see CV".

2. Arctic Shores assessment. The information sheet says that "following application, you'll be invited to complete a task-based psychometric assessment". The invitation comes from noreply@arcticshores.com, so check your spam folder. Southeastern says your results "may be used at the screening stage, to support with decision making at interview stage, and to support the hiring manager with your onboarding journey" (recruitment process page).

3. Assessment centre, for some roles. The process PDF says Southeastern "may ask you to attend our in-house assessment centre", and that practice materials are shared in advance.

4. Interview. This is a video or in-person interview with structured competency-based questions. Southeastern's interview guidance says you'll be sent a selection of the questions beforehand. It opens with a question about you and why you want the role, then moves to examples from your experience.

5. Talent pool, for frontline volume roles. Southeastern builds talent pools for station staff, conductors and trainee drivers. "Once you have passed interview you will be in our talent pool and once a position is available in your area, we will progress you to medical and agree a start date" (recruitment process page).

6. Medical, offer and references. Everyone has a medical with drugs and alcohol screening, and safety-critical roles have a fuller one. The offer follows the medical, and all offers depend on references covering 5 years, a right to work check and a basic criminal record check (process PDF).

7. Training. Frontline starters go to Southeastern's training school. Trainee drivers join a Driver Apprenticeship Programme. The most recent trainee driver advert says qualifying usually takes 12 to 18 months, through "classroom days, modular assessments and practical training".

Role-specific points

• Trainee train driver. You must be 20 or older, and you need to live within a 40-minute drive of a depot, or 20 minutes by public transport for the London depots (train driver page). The most recent driver advert we found took applications only for Ashford (Kent) and Tonbridge, and withdrew applications from outside the 40-minute catchment. It closed on 1 January 2026, and when we checked on 4 November 2026 it said "the application deadline for this job has now passed" (advert). It gave pay as £27,639 to start, rising in steps to £62,727 once qualified. Watch Southeastern's vacancies page for the next round. Train drivers on the GB mainline also sit the rail industry's standard psychometric tests. RSSB's FAQ on standard RIS-3751-TOM (December 2024) lists them: attention (Group Bourdon, TEA-Occ), vigilance (WAFV), rules and procedures (TRP1, TRP2), perception (ATAVT), two-hand coordination (2HAND), a situational judgement exercise and a multi-modal interview. It says you get approved practice materials at least a week before, and candidates starting since 7 December 2024 have three attempts in total (two for those who started earlier). Southeastern's pages don't say at which point in its process these tests come.

  Practising for the driver tests. You get the approved practice materials from the employer at least a week before, and those are the ones to use (RSSB FAQ). Several of the tests reward sustained attention and holding back a wrong response: the attention tests, the WAFV vigilance test and the reaction-time element. Our go/no-go test (press on green, hold back on red) is a general warm-up for that kind of response control. It is not one of the RSSB tests, and it won't stand in for the official materials. There is no mechanical comprehension test on the list in the current standard (RIS-3751-TOM issue four, published 7 December 2024), so we don't suggest mechanical practice for the driver route unless your invitation names one.

• Station staff (customer service). The current customer service advert asks for applicants aged 18 or over who live within a 40-minute commute of Tonbridge station without public transport. It says the vacancy may close early, and that you should wait six months before reapplying after an unsuccessful application.

• Apprenticeships and graduate schemes. Southeastern's early careers page says its three-year Engineering Apprenticeship opens for applications in early 2027, and other apprenticeships open at various times. Graduate schemes "typically last two years", and the page warns that schemes "may be closed for now". That page doesn't describe a separate assessment, so expect the general process above. For the engineering route, our mechanical aptitude test is reasonable background practice, but Southeastern doesn't list a mechanical test.

Southeastern also says that under the Armed Forces Covenant and the Disability Confident scheme, it offers an interview to applicants under those schemes who meet the minimum criteria (customer service advert).

What the assessment involves

What Southeastern says. All of this comes from the information sheet:

• It is "a series of interactive tasks designed to measure your unique behaviours". Each task is based on experiments from cognitive neuroscience, and the tasks "are purposely designed to conceal exactly what they measure".
• "There are no right or wrong answers", so approach the tasks in the way that feels natural to you.
• Allow 15 to 20 minutes. The time depends on how many tasks you get, and your invitation shows an estimate. Depending on the role, the first one or two tasks may be timed. You can take breaks between tasks.
• Instructions come before each task, and you can revisit them.
• Your results are compared with a "norm group" of similar people.
• If you completed the assessment in the past 12 months, you can reuse your earlier result or retake it in full. You may still need to do some tasks again. If you've taken it several times in 12 months, the most recent score counts.

Southeastern doesn't name the tasks. Our Arctic Shores assessment guide describes every task candidates report.

An older document you may see. The candidate pack attached to the customer service advert dates from March 2023, before the Arctic Shores sheet. It describes online tests done on a laptop or computer, and for some roles an online assessment on Microsoft Teams or pen-and-paper tests and a role play at the Recruitment & Training Centre. Where it differs from the September 2025 sheet, go by the newer sheet and your invitation.

What you can practise

Southeastern says no advance preparation is needed. It also offers a practice task inside the assessment and a separate practice link in the sheet. Use those first.

Because Southeastern doesn't say which tasks it uses, our practice games cover the range. The timed ones are where knowing the rules helps:

• Tasks with right answers or a clock: Predict (guide), Security lock (guide), Direction (guide), Ticket (guide), Balance (guide) and Order (guide).
• Behavioural tasks, with no winning style: Balloon (guide), Energy (guide) and Team Sales (guide).

What first attempts look like. Among players' first attempts on GamePrep (October to November 2026), the median raw score was 56% better bets on Predict (163 players), a 118 ms timing error on the Security lock (71 players, lower is better), 83 points on Direction (54 players), 70 points on Ticket (51 players) and 9 level points on Balance (78 players). On Balloon, the median first attempt banked 890 cents (53 players), which describes risk styles rather than a target. These are people practising, not Southeastern candidates, and Southeastern compares you with Arctic Shores' norm group. The full spread for each game is on our score benchmarks page.

Be realistic about what practice does. Arctic Shores measures behaviour, so practice won't change your profile. It means you won't lose the first rounds of a timed task learning the controls. In the behavioural tasks, play the way you would actually work.

For the interview, Southeastern gives you more to prepare than most employers. Its core question bank groups the questions under its three Ways of Working: We Show We Care, We Think "What If?" and We Make Great Things Happen. Examples include "Give me an example of when you have gone out of your way to help a customer or colleague" and "Tell me about a time when you had to think creatively to solve a complex problem". If your interview is by video, you can rehearse answering aloud and on camera with our video interview practice.

How to prepare

• Before you apply: read the advert's location rules carefully. Driver and station adverts set a commuting limit and may close early.
• Adjustments: request them through the support email in your Arctic Shores invitation before you start. Southeastern says they "cannot be applied retrospectively". You can also email careers@southeasternrailway.co.uk at any stage (recruitment process page).
• On the day: use the latest browser version on a stable connection, somewhere quiet. Read each task's instructions, since the first tasks may be timed.
• No AI during the assessment. Southeastern lists psychometric and behavioural assessments among the stages where AI "should not be used", and asks candidates not to use real-time AI prompting in interviews. Using AI to practise interview answers beforehand is fine (recruitment process page).
• For the interview: pick a handful of real examples that fit several questions from the bank, and structure them with STAR. Southeastern's guidance says you may refer to notes but shouldn't read from them. It also asks potential-based questions ("what would you do if…"), so you won't always need a past example.

FAQ

How long is the Southeastern Arctic Shores assessment? Southeastern says to allow 15 to 20 minutes. The exact time depends on how many tasks your role includes, and your invitation shows an estimate (information sheet).

Can I do it on my phone? Yes. Southeastern says it can be done on desktop, mobile or tablet, with a strong, stable connection and an up-to-date browser.

Is there a pass mark? Southeastern doesn't publish one. It compares your results with a norm group and may use them at screening, at interview and when you start the job.

Do I have to retake it if I apply for another Southeastern role? Not if you took it in the last 12 months. You can reuse the earlier result, which is recalibrated against the new role, or retake the full assessment. You may still need to complete some tasks.

Is there a mechanical comprehension test for Southeastern train drivers? Not in the current industry standard. RSSB's list for RIS-3751-TOM covers attention, vigilance, rules and procedures, perception, reaction time, two-hand coordination, a situational judgement exercise and an interview, with no mechanical test (RSSB FAQ).

Are the train driver psychometric tests the same as Arctic Shores? No. The driver tests in RSSB standard RIS-3751-TOM (Group Bourdon, TRP and others) are an industry-wide set for GB mainline train drivers (RSSB FAQ). Arctic Shores is the online assessment Southeastern's recruitment page describes for its own selection process.

GamePrep is an independent practice platform and is not affiliated with Southeastern or Arctic Shores. We provide practice only — no leaked questions or answers. Hiring processes change — verify against your invitation.