In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with IStructE before applying.
With support from a personal mentor, you manage your training and keep records of progress towards every Core Objective.
Keeping a weekly diary
A weekly diary is optional in the guidance, which says "you may also benefit". It gives you details to draw on when writing a quarterly report: an option rejected, a surprising calculation result or a discussion that changed the design.
Over four years, those records can support ten final report forms and a portfolio of up to 300 pages.
What to record
Describe your own actions and decisions at the relevant Knowledge, Experience or Ability level. Compare "attended design team meeting" with "argued for moving the core to the north end because the transfer at level 2 was driving the frame depth; sized both options first; the architect accepted it". The second entry identifies evidence of concept design, communication and analysis.
The same fortnight, recorded two ways
Fictional example: a graduate engineer, second year
Worked on the Northgate project. Carried out design of steelwork to the mezzanine and attended site. Assisted with the foundation design.
Northgate mezzanine. Sized the secondary beams by hand first (UB 305×165 governed by deflection, not strength — L/360 gave 18 mm against 24 mm available) then checked against the model, which came out 6% lower because it was picking up composite action I had not assumed. Decided to keep the hand-sized member because the deck was not designed as composite. Went to site for the first pour and found the holding-down bolts 15 mm out on two bases; agreed the oversized plate washer detail with the contractor rather than moving the bolts.
The second version took four minutes to write and evidences analysis and sizing, materials, construction and communication. The first evidences that the candidate was employed. In three years' time only one of them can be turned into a final report form.
Running this route well
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.