In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with IStructE before applying.
IStructE assesses your commitment to CPD at the Professional Review Interview. You must continue reporting CPD after election.
Recording relevant learning
CPD can include technical meetings, seminars or recordings, reading a standard, site visits, project reviews, language study and management qualifications. Activities outside work or structural engineering can contribute.
Explain how you planned the learning, why it was relevant to maintaining or broadening your competence and what it changed. Core Objective 1 requires knowledge of CPD's importance and the Institution's requirements, an appropriate training record and a plan for continued commitment.
Adding reflection
Compare these fictional records:
"Attended a two-day course on robustness, 14 hours"
"Attended a two-day course on robustness. I had been treating tying provisions as a detailing exercise applied after the frame was set. I now understand that the key element check can change the frame, and on the Eastgate scheme I moved a transfer column at concept stage because of it. Next: I want to understand the accidental load cases better, which is in my plan for next year."
The fuller entry explains how the learning affected a design decision and identifies a next step you could discuss at review.
The same activity, recorded two ways
Fictional example: a one-day seminar on embodied carbon
14 March. Embodied carbon seminar, 7 hours. Organised by Regional Group. Certificate attached.
14 March. Regional Group seminar on embodied carbon, 7 hours. Objective from my plan: be able to run a scheme comparison without relying on the sustainability team. Benefit: I had been comparing schemes on material quantity alone and treating all concrete as equivalent; I now understand how much of the difference sits in the cement replacement and the transport assumption. Applied on the Latham options study in April — resetting the baseline to the do-minimum case changed which of the two schemes came out lower. Next: I want to understand the uncertainty in the factors we are using, which is now in my plan.
The second version shows a planned objective, a change in understanding, an application with a consequence, and a next step feeding back into the plan. It evidences Core Objectives 1 and 6, and it survives being asked about at interview.
CPD that will stand up at the interview
Official sources
Selected publisher pages were rechecked in September 2026. Other source records were last checked in July 2026. Open the latest official document before relying on a requirement.