Industrial engineering and management alumni are more in demand than ever to address our complex economic, social, and environmental challenges, such as climate change, resource conservation, and soil degradation. Tackling these challenges requires an expanded set of transdisciplinary competences, encompassing both technical expertise and transversal competences, such as teamwork, communication, and/or dealing with uncertainty. Based on the results of the so-called “European Engineering Competence Survey” that was conducted in 2023, the study “Asian Engineering Competence Survey (AECS)” focuses on the systematic exploration of the required engineering competences of the future in Asia. The authors theoretically explore the required competences for engineering professionals and subsequently conduct a survey that investigates the impact of the second-order construct competence on a holistic set of economic and socio-psychological performance measures in Thailand by computing a variance-based structural equation model. Future research can build upon these findings to explore how systematic competence development enhances workforce performance in various economic and educational contexts.