Professional bodies require CPD. None require outcomes. This isn’t negligence — it’s a rational position given the measurement infrastructure gap that has existed until recently. Understanding what professional bodies are actually optimising for explains why outcome measurement hasn’t been part of their requirements, and what would need to change for it to become one. What…

A graduate AEC professional attends CPD without a framework for evaluating it. They log hours because they must. They have no way of knowing whether their CPD was worth the time, no institutional support for reflection, and no mechanism for demonstrating to employers or clients what they actually learned. This is a near-universal frustration among…

A firefighter training in rope rescue technique does not receive CPD hours for watching a video on the subject. They are tested on whether they can perform the rescue, under live or simulated conditions, under time pressure. Every sector where the cost of unmeasured competence is catastrophic and visible quickly has already abandoned attendance-based evidence…

The single most effective CPD marketing mechanism in the AEC sector is the provision of free food. This isn’t a complaint. It’s a rational response to an information-poor environment, and worth taking seriously rather than dismissing as evidence that professionals don’t care about content quality. Why the free lunch works. When quality signals are absent…

The assumption that in-person CPD is superior to webinar CPD is near-universal in AEC and largely evidence-free. It persists partly because in-person events feel more substantial — there’s a room, a host, sometimes food — and partly because webinar CPD proliferated fastest during a period when a lot of it genuinely was rushed and thin….

A product manufacturer delivers a session about their product category. An architect or engineer attends. The session covers technical performance data, installation guidance, relevant standards and regulations, and application case studies. The manufacturer hopes the professional will specify their product. The professional hopes to learn something that will help them make better decisions. Both things…

In 1999, the International Organisation for Standardisation published a guideline that should have changed how every organisation measures professional training. It’s called ISO 10015: Quality Management — Guidelines for Competence Management and People Development. It requires, plainly, that organisations planning and delivering training evaluate whether that training achieved its intended effect on competence. Not whether…

This piece is not legal advice. The evidential significance of any CPD record in any specific proceeding depends on the facts of that proceeding. If you are involved in or anticipating legal proceedings, consult a qualified construction law solicitor. Your CPD Record as Legal Evidence Post-Grenfell, AEC professionals are aware that specification decisions carry professional…

A manufacturer invests significant resource delivering CPD to architects and engineers. At the end of each session, they know how many people attended, whether anyone asked questions, and — if they ran a satisfaction survey — how the session was rated. What they don’t know, but need to: which of those attendees are currently working…

The Building Safety Regulator’s registration scheme for building inspectors introduces, for the first time, a formal competence framework for a profession that has historically relied on qualifications and years of service as proxies for competence. Registration requires demonstrating that technical knowledge is current, documented, and maintained — not simply that qualifications were obtained at some…