Initial Professional Development Overview

Along with the chartered engineering exam, the Initial Professional Development (IPD) is a key requirement to becoming a chartered engineer with the IStructE. IPD, like CPD (Continual Professional Development), is a record of your experiences and projects. The experiences you are meant to show for your IPD should cover a range of Core Objectives that are expected of a competant chartered structural engineer.

Routes

As described on the IStructE website, there are three routes of demonstrating that you have satisfied the core objectives:

• Retrospectively Collated: You collate and submit your IPD Final Report forms together with a Portfolio (can follow at a later date)
  
  
• Individually Managed:  You manage your own training with the help of a mentor. Collate and submit your IPD final report forms + portfolio and with quarterly reports and progress summary records.
  
  
• Accredited Training Scheme: Your company already has an accredited training scheme following the ICE or HKIE routes, which are recognised by the IStructE.

In the author's experience, the Retrospectively Collated route tends to be the most common since engineers tend to move between different companies making the Individually Managed route slightly more difficult to consistently follow.

Required Documents for Restrospectively Collated Route

Two main required documents:

1. IPD Report Forms
   (this should include a CV + experience report on the first few pages. Your IPD report forms should reference or correspond to the items in your IPD portfolio)
   
   
2. IPD Portfolio of Work
   (max. 300 page document, with portfolio items categorised according to the core objectives).

Process

The process to pass your Initial Professional Development (IPD) is as follows:

1. Prepare and submit IPD report forms using the IStructE template on their website.
   These should be compiled into a single PDF and can be submitted on the IStructE website. The portfolio isn't submitted at this point.
   
   
2. The IStructE will acknowledge your application and suitability of the submitted documents, then arrange interviewers (this usually takes a 2-3 months).
   
   
3. Once your interviewers have been selected, they will reach out to you directly to arrange the interview date and request your IPD Portfolio of Work.
   
   
4. Your interview can last between 1-hour and 1-hour 30-minutes. You will receive your interview results typically 2-4 weeks following your interview date.
   
   ※ IStructe IPD Interview Guidance