Phase 5 · Build your portfolio

What counts as evidence

The difference between describing a project and evidencing a Core Objective, and what reviewers are actually reading for.

Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Mentors

Evidence is not a record of projects you were on. It is a record of what you did, at what level of responsibility, against a specific Core Objective.

The same document can carry an objective or fail to, depending on what it shows about your contribution and your level of supervision.

What the guidance asks of your evidence

Institution of Structural Engineers

The portfolio must contain evidence relating to all Core Objectives on which you are being assessed, and allow easy cross-referencing with the IPD final report forms.
The information provided must be relevant and relate directly to the Core Objectives and how you have achieved the standards.
You are expected to include examples of work from a variety of projects.
Where appropriate, provide comments and annotations on the submitted information to help demonstrate an understanding of the work and its relevance to the Core Objectives.
All work included must be your own. Submitting work carried out by other people is not permitted.
Avoid submitting repetitive designs or drawings, and full reports of projects.

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

The gap most candidates fall into

The guidance names the failure directly, in its advice on the report forms: candidates often describe the Core Objective, or explain why it matters, instead of stating how they achieved the standard. The same instinct produces portfolios that are project albums — a general arrangement here, a nice render there — with nothing anchoring any of it to an objective.

A reviewer reading a page of your portfolio is asking three questions, in this order:

01What was your part in this? Not the firm's. Not the team's. Yours.
02At what level did you work? Under supervision, unsupervised, or advising others — because that is precisely what the three minimum standards distinguish.
03Which objective does this evidence, and how do I find that from the form?

If a page does not answer all three, it is spending part of your 300 without earning anything.

Match the evidence to the standard, not just the topic

Each objective is set at Knowledge, Experience or Ability, and those are different claims about you. Evidence that comfortably shows Knowledge will not carry an Ability objective, however good the drawing is.

Knowledge — you understand the subject and its principles. A CPD record, a considered commentary, a note of where the limits of your competence sit.
Experience — you have done the work, independently or under supervision. Marked-up calculations, a design you produced, correspondence showing your part in it.
Ability — you did it unsupervised and are competent to advise others. Evidence that you made the call, checked someone else's work, or set the approach that others followed.

The single most common weakness is a portfolio built entirely at the Experience level, submitted against objectives that ask for Ability.

Annotate everything

An annotation is the cheapest evidence you will ever produce. A drawing with a margin note — "I sized these transfer beams; the 900 depth was driven by the services zone shown, which I agreed with the M&E lead" — turns a shared document into personal evidence, and costs you two lines.

Fictional example

The same job, evidenced two ways

Fictional example — a four-storey office refurbishment, consultant

Weaker

Includes the general arrangement drawing for the second floor and the structural calculations package for the scheme, with a caption reading "Office refurbishment, 2024. Steel frame with composite slabs."

Stronger

Includes two sheets from the same calculations, annotated: which member the candidate sized, the deflection limit chosen and why, the transfer condition they identified when the client moved a wall, and a note of the check they asked their supervisor to review and why. The general arrangement is included once, marked to show the four gridlines the candidate was responsible for.

Why — The second version is shorter and evidences more. It shows personal contribution, a judgement made, an awareness of what needed checking by someone else, and a clear link to the objectives on analysis and sizing. The first version could have been submitted by any of nine people on that job.

Selecting what goes in

Worth doing

Choose evidence for what it proves about you, not for how impressive the project was
Spread it across several projects, as the guidance expects
Annotate every item with your part in it and the judgement you made
Include work at the level the objective asks for — advising others, where the standard is Ability
Include evidence of things that went wrong and what you did about them; reviewers read this well

Avoid

Include a full project report because it is thorough
Repeat the same design or drawing type to fill space
Submit anything you did not produce yourself
Leave a reviewer to infer your contribution from a title block
Assume a well-known project speaks for itself

Test any piece of evidence with these

If my name were removed, could a reviewer still tell what I did?
If not, the item is evidence about the project, not about you — and it is your competence being assessed.
Which objective does this sit under, and at which standard?
Evidence that is not filed against an objective is not doing work; the portfolio is sub-divided by objective for exactly this reason.
Does this show a judgement, or only an output?
Outputs show that work happened. Judgements show the level of responsibility you carried, which is what separates the three standards.
Would I be comfortable being questioned on every number on this page?
Reviewers question primarily on the content of your portfolio. Anything you cannot discuss in detail is a liability.