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Continuing Professional Development (CPD) – why is it important?

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Published: Thu 17 Jun 2021

CPD is how you keep up to date with current practice and standards, drives you to improve your skills, and demonstrates your commitment to the engineering profession.

Keeping an up-to-date CPD record (ideally in Career Manager) helps show how you’ve developed your professional skills.

It can also be invaluable when you’re ready to advance in your career.

How to make CPD an inspiring part of your Professional Development:

What does a book on German politics and modern history, a webinar on developments in edge computing, and a workshop on the ethics and safety of autonomous vehicles have in common?

The answer is they’re all highlights of my recent CPD activities.

The IET has got everything you need to build your most exciting career.

From keeping updated with current industry practices through training courses to improve your skills, it’s important to maintain your CPD – and the IET is committed to helping you succeed.

To make it easier to remember what counts, use the TWAVES acronym:

  • Training courses
  • Work experience
  • Academic study
  • Volunteering
  • Events and seminars
  • Self-study

If you learn something new that could help you in your career, then it counts as CPD.

At times, CPD can feel like a chore; it’s sometimes portrayed as a sort of compulsory ‘box ticking’ exercise associated with mandatory training courses.

However, being curious about the world around us, keeping up to date with technological advances, and understanding the topical issues in our field are all part and parcel of being successful in our careers.

They certainly have been in mine.

My top IET CPD resources for keeping informed of the latest technical content

  • E&T webinars
  • Technical webinars
  • IET.tv

This curiosity and thirst for knowledge, the asking ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ are innate characteristics of all successful engineers.

Being curious, asking questions, and having a growth mindset are the basis of innovation; they’re all at the heart of our profession.

Enabling these is what CPD is all about.

My top IET CPD resources for skills development and building on your specialisms

  • Lifeskills workshops for soft skills
  • E-classes and free training webinars
  • IET Academy

CPD is important as it stops us as individuals from being complacent.

To me, as a professional engineer, it’s part of my DNA to continue to expand my knowledge and to hone my practice.

After 30 years, my curiosity is still strong; this forms the bedrock of my philosophy about CPD.