Phase 3 · Complete your IPD

Comparable accredited training records

Using training records from a scheme accredited by another body to demonstrate the Core Objectives.

Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Employers

The Institution does not accredit company training schemes — but if you are on a comparable scheme accredited by another body, those records can be used to demonstrate compliance with the Core Objectives.

What this route allows

Institution of Structural Engineers

The Institution does not accredit company training schemes.
Candidates following comparable training schemes accredited by other bodies — the guidance names ICE and HKIE as examples — may submit those training records to demonstrate compliance with the Institution's Core Objectives.
The experience must be in structural engineering.
You will be required to submit your full records of training and portfolio of work when requested by your reviewers.
You will also be required to complete the Institution's IPD final report forms.

Supporting documents outside the page count: Quarterly reports, progress summary, signed training recordsSent directly to your reviewers, not to the Institution, and they do not count towards the 300 pages.

From IPD Guidance — Chartered Member, Institution of Structural Engineers.

The mapping problem, and how to handle it

Another body's scheme is organised against its own competence framework, not against IStructE's ten Core Objectives. An ICE Training Agreement records progress against ICE's attributes; an HKIE scheme against HKIE's.

So the records demonstrate that structured, supervised training happened, and they carry the detail of what you did — but nobody has yet mapped that detail onto the ten objectives. That mapping is your job, and it is what the IPD final report forms are for.

The practical advice is to do the mapping early rather than at the end. Take the ten objectives, take your training records, and work out for each objective which entries support it and at what level. Two things usually fall out:

Some objectives are richly covered because the other framework happens to emphasise them.
One or two are barely touched, because the other framework does not ask for them in the same way — sustainability and commercial and legal are the common ones.

Finding that with two years to go is a development plan. Finding it three months before applying is a problem.

The structural engineering test

The guidance is specific: the experience must be in structural engineering. A scheme completed largely in geotechnics, highways or water may be impeccably accredited and still not carry the structural content the Core Objectives require. Be honest with yourself about the balance, because the reviewers will be.

Using this route

My scheme is accredited by another body, not simply run by my employer.
My experience under it is in structural engineering.
I have my full training records, signed.
I have mapped those records onto the ten Core Objectives myself.
I have identified which objectives the other framework under-covers.
I have a plan for the gaps, with dates.
I know I still need IStructE's IPD final report forms for all ten objectives.

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Questions to ask yourself

Which of the ten objectives does my scheme barely touch?
Frameworks emphasise different things. The gap is predictable, and it is far cheaper to close early.
Is my experience genuinely structural?
The guidance says it must be. An accredited scheme completed in an adjacent discipline does not satisfy that on its own.