Phase 3 · Complete your IPD
Initial Professional Development
What IPD is, how it is described in Core Objectives, and what all experience can count towards it.
Who this is for:Candidates at any stage ·Mentors ·Employers
IPD is the progressive development of the specialist knowledge and skills needed to practise as a structural engineer. It bridges the gap between your educational base and professional qualification.
How IStructE describes it
Institution of Structural Engineers
- IPD is the progressive development of the specialist knowledge and skills needed to practise as a structural engineer. It bridges the gap between your educational base and attaining professional qualifications.
- The Institution describes IPD in terms of Core Objectives, which are defined to minimum standards.
- Gaining competence and experience at work will develop your ability to carry responsibility and make independent judgements.
- Early in your career the focus is on broadening your experience and skills across various projects. As you progress, your understanding and abilities develop to provide the standards required to complete your IPD.
- All relevant experience may be considered, including pre-graduate experience.
- Core Objectives
- 10Compulsory, and all ten are assessed at the interview.
- Minimum standard levels
- Knowledge, Experience, AbilityKnowledge — understanding of the subject and its application. Experience — performed independently or under supervision. Ability — performed without supervision, and competent to advise others.
From IPD Guidance — Chartered Member, Institution of Structural Engineers.
The shape of it
Two things in that description are worth dwelling on, because they change how people plan.
"Progressive." IPD is not a fixed number of years followed by an application. It is a movement from doing work under supervision towards carrying responsibility and making independent judgements — which is exactly what the three minimum standards describe. What determines readiness is where you have got to on that movement, not how long you have been going.
"All relevant experience may be considered, including pre-graduate experience." Candidates routinely discount a placement year, part-time work during study, or a period in a related discipline. If it developed the knowledge and skills the Core Objectives describe, it can be put forward.
Broadening, then deepening
The guidance sets out a shape that matches how careers actually go: early on you broaden — several project types, several materials, several stages — and later you deepen, until you can work unsupervised and advise others in the areas set at Ability.
That has a practical consequence. If you have spent four years doing one thing very well, you may be closer to the Ability standard in one objective and further from the Experience standard in five others than someone with a messier, broader record. It is worth auditing early rather than assuming that time served covers it.
What IPD produces, in the end
- 01
Records kept as you go
Whatever route you take, evidence of progress against each Core Objective. On the individually managed route that means quarterly report forms and a progress summary record.
- 02
IPD final report forms
One for each of the ten Core Objectives, completed once you have satisfied the requirements. On the individually managed route these are signed by your personal mentor.
- 03
A two-page experience report
Your roles and responsibilities over the course of your career, submitted with the forms as a single document when you apply.
- 04
A portfolio of work
Up to 300 pages, sub-divided by Core Objective, sent directly to your two reviewers before the interview.
Where are you, actually?
Which route am I on, and have I chosen it deliberately?
There are three, they suit different situations, and drifting into one by default is how people end up with records that do not support an application.
Am I recording evidence as I go, or reconstructing it later?
The detail that makes evidence convincing — the option you rejected, the number you checked — is gone within a year.
Have I counted my pre-graduate experience?
The guidance explicitly allows it, and candidates routinely leave it out for no reason.
Related pages and tools
- The three routesIndividually managed, comparable accredited training records, or retrospectively collated — how to choose.
- Core ObjectivesWhat IStructE assesses, what Knowledge, Experience and Ability actually mean, and where the two grades differ.
- MentorWho can mentor you, what to expect of them, and what a mentor should and should not do.
- Quarterly reportsThe records the individually managed route requires, and how to keep them so they are useful later.
- The portfolioWhat the portfolio is for, when it has to be ready, who receives it, and the format rules that decide whether it is read.
- CPDWhat IStructE means by CPD, how it is assessed at the interview, and the mandatory reporting that follows election.