Chartered Member

Chartered Member Stage 2: Initial Professional Development

Those wishing to apply for the Stage 2 assessment must already be in membership. 

Initial Professional Development (IPD) is the period in your career when you develop the knowledge, understanding and skill, and professional attitude for qualifying as a Chartered Member. It can take place through structured graduate training schemes or it may be self managed.

Exemption through accredited training

IChemE accredits employer training schemes that meet the IPD requirements for Chartered membership. If you have completed an IChemE Accredited Company Training Scheme (ACTS), and your training has been signed off by your scheme mentor and the ACTS manager, you will have satisfied the requirements for Stage 2 IPD.

By submitting a signed copy of your ACTS IPD Completion Form via our application system, you will be exempt from further assessment for Stage 2.

Self-managed Initial Professional Development

If you have not been through an IChemE ACTS, you will be required to undergo an assessment of your IPD. The IPD assessment not only satisfies the UK’s Engineering Council requirements for Chartered Engineer (CEng) registration, but identifies any gaps in your experience so that these can be rectified before applying for Stage 3 - Professional Review. Feedback from an IPD assessment can be invaluable in helping you prepare for your Professional Review.

Achieving your IPD can be challenging whichever path you follow. However, we recognise that this can be more challenging for someone who has not been able to complete an ACTS, we have therefore developed recording tools that will help you plan and track your IPD. We also encourage you to find a mentor.

You will need to record evidence against the attributes and get this evidence reviewed by your mentor or line manager before you submit it for assessment by IChemE. You can use the same tools to take a retrospective review of your IPD. Either way, if you have not completed an ACTS, you will need to make an IPD Submission to determine if you have met the IPD requirements. Our guidance document together with our example submissions document will help you do this.

All of your information can be added directly to the online application portal. However, if you find it useful to compile your IPD Submission in an offline document beforehand, you can use the IPD Submission preparatory template to do this although this is not compulsory. You will then copy and paste the information into the application portal when you're ready to submit it for review.

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