RICS requirements: 20 hours per year (10 hours formal, 10 hours informal)

If you’re a member of RICS, the activities relevant to your work and professional growth are based on your own personal judgement. RICS requires a minimum of 20 hours of CPD each year, which must be completed by 31 December and logged online by 31 January.

Half of your CPD should be formal or structured learning, which is described as classroom, workshop or seminar-type learning, whether in-person or online. The sessions at our conferences will count as formal CPD depending on the level of learning you achieved from attending. If you developed your understanding of a specific subject that has relevance to your work, then that counts as formal CPD. All formal learning should be structured – ie. you chose to undertake a specific learning activity to develop a particular skill or knowledge on a particular topic.

Our conferences feature experts and academics speaking on topics with defined learning outcomes in sessions that last between 40 and 50 minutes. Workshops at the Festival of Place in July are longer (up to 90 minutes) and count as formal CPD too. Networking at an event doesn’t count as CPD.

The other half of your CPD requirement is informal (10 hours), and if you listen to our podcast, read the weekly email newsletter and read our magazine, you may have already completed these hours automatically. You just need to log them.

Volunteering as a judge for The Pineapples could also be considered as meeting some of your CPD requirement, depending on whether you found the judging visits, project reviews and deliberations relevant to your work. It can be considered CPD if you found reviewing the projects educational, for example, watching shortlist presentations, reading submissions and discussing the projects with other judges.

RIBA requirements: 35 hours of CPD every year (12.5 hours formal CPD and 12.5 informal). At least 20 hours of the CPD should relate to the 10 core curriculum topics (you are expected to complete two hours for each topic).

At the RIBA, CPD choices are entirely flexible and personal, and they do not need to be supplied by, accredited by or approved by the RIBA. You do not need to acquire attendance or CPD certificates. Any relevant learning from any source can count towards your requirements, so if you think that a learning activity is relevant to you for whatever role you are doing, then it counts as CPD.

That said, half of the hours undertaken should be structured or formal CPD. This is defined as classroom-based online or in-person learning, led by someone who gives you learning aims and outcomes.

Festival of Place event sessions count as structured CPD, when they have specific learning outcomes and are tailored to your learning needs. For example, David Partridge’s talk on the Net Zero Building Standard at Festival of Place: Climate Resilience 2024 would count as 50 minutes of formal CPD.

As for informal learning, this is defined as short and self-directed learning, so reading The Developer articles or magazine, listening to our podcasts and talks at our events will count towards this tally. If you listen to our podcast or read our weekly newsletter content and posts on LinkedIn, you’ve likely achieved 30 minutes per week already.

Four of the 10 topics outlined by the RIBA for CPD closely align with our content and events. These include: Architecture for Social Purpose; Sustainable Architecture; Inclusive Environments; Places, planning and communities. If you are missing hours from these sessions, you could use the Festival of Place Talks Library, our website or our podcast to top up your hours.

Landscape Institute: 25 hours per year.  10 hours structured or formal learning. 5 hours must include topics related to climate, sustainability, resilience and environmental and biodiversity net gain. 

At the Landscape Institute, any activity that allows you to reflect on what you’ve learned or experienced, and then apply that knowledge or experience to your practice, counts as CPD. A wide range of formal and informal activities, both personal and professional, count towards your hours.

Five hours of your annual CPD must include topics related to climate, sustainability, resilience, and environmental and biodiversity net gain. Festival of Place: Climate Resilience is ideal for fulfilling these requirements, alongside several podcasts and articles published this year – for example, episodes on urban trees, flooding and biodiversity.

Podcasts, reading, research and attending our conferences and events, presenting at The Pineapples awards and judging The Pineapples, all can be counted towards your CPD hours, provided you learned something.

ICE – There is no minimum set requirement for CPD hours, but you are expected to plan, undertake and record CPD hours

For ICE, anything that has contributed to your learning and development can count towards your CPD including courses, seminars, conferences, reading relevant publications, web-based research, and personal development activities. 

Members are expected to submit a Development Action Plan at least once per year, and log all learning activities in a Personal Development Record. Annual CPD Audits are undertaken with your records and reviewed by a panel of volunteers.

ICE provides annual core topics for CPD. Five of these topics are regularly covered at our events and in our coverage: Design for adaptation and resilience; weather resilience, climate adaptation, decarbonisation; Inclusive travel design; Nature based solutions to flooding; and Climate change.

If you are missing CPD hours, the Festival of Place Talks Archive and podcasts can help to fulfil your criteria.

If there are other professional institutions you would like us to add to this list, get in touch with  christine@thedeveloper.live