This cross-sectional research used a qualitative questionnaire to explore clinical competence in nursing. The aim was to look for evidence of how clinical competence showed itself in practice. In the research, the views from both education and working life are combined to broadly explore and describe clinical competence from the perspective of students, clinical preceptors and teachers. The questions were formulated on how clinical competence is characterised and experienced, what contributes to it and how it is maintained, and on the relation between clinical competence and evidence-based care. The answers were analysed by inductive content analysis. The results showed that clinical competence in practice is encountering, knowing, performing, maturing and improving. Clinical competence is an ongoing process, rather than a state and manifests itself in an ontological and a contextual dimension.