Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) encompasses any training or learning that enhances your knowledge, maintains your technical skills, and supports your career growth as a professional engineer. Keeping your skills up to date is essential to ensuring you remain competent, effective and compliant with the industry standards.

Number of hours required

Your registration, and endorsement if applicable, will expire after the period granted by the BLA (in most cases, 3 years from the date it was granted).

To be eligible to renew your registration and endorsement, you must have completed CPD during the past 3 years.

The CPD requirement is:

A practising professional engineer working full time – 150 hours
A practising professional engineer working part-time or who took a career break – 90 hours
A non-practising professional engineer – 90 hours
A professional engineer who transferred between practising and non-practising or vice versa – pro-rata based on the time working as a registered practising professional engineer and the time registered as a non-practising professional engineer.

For example, working for 2 years as a practising professional engineer – pro-rata this would be 100 hours of CPD – plus one year registered as a non-practising professional engineer – pro-rata this would be 30 hours – totalling 130 hours of completed CPD to be eligible for renewal.

Career break

A career break is a minimum period of 3 months over the last 3 years during which you do not work as a professional engineer. For example, due to illness, travel, parental or carers leave, sporting commitments, cultural or ceremonial commitments, broadening knowledge and skill or unemployment.

CPD exemption

You do not need to complete CPD to renew your registration if:

you are registered as a professional engineer in another Australian state or territory, or New Zealand, and
that jurisdiction requires you to complete an equivalent amount of CPD to Victoria.

This exemption only applies to Victorian registration. Members of professional or industry associations may require completion of CPD as part of membership requirements.

CPD areas and activities

These are the areas where CPD is required and the activities that you can undertake to complete your CPD to renew your registration.

Areas and activities	Requirements
Areas of CPD training	At least 33 per cent of CPD hours must relate to technical matters relevant to the area/s of engineering in which the applicant is registered. The remaining CPD should be in related areas, for example, project management, ethics and law, risk management, communication, health and safety programs, occupational health and safety training and mentoring junior engineers.
Types of CPD activity	(i) Formal post-graduate study or tertiary course units whether or not undertaken for award purposes – no limit of hours. (ii) Short courses, workshops, webinars, seminars and discussion groups, conferences, technical inspections and meetings – no limit of hours. (iii) Learning activities in the workplace that extend competence in the regulated or a related area/s of engineering – maximum 75 hours. (iv) Research which extends knowledge and skills – maximum 57 hours. (v) Private study (engineering journals and magazines) which extend knowledge and skills – maximum 18 hours. (vi) Service to the engineering profession (volunteer work, mentoring) – maximum 50 hours. (vii) Publishing of articles in technical forums and preparation and presentation of papers for courses, conferences, seminars, etc - maximum 45 hours per paper or 75 hours per paper for papers subject to critical peer review before publication. (viii) Professional engineers employed in tertiary teaching or academic research and registered as ‘practising’ – minimum of 40 hours of industry involvement in any 3-year period.

Areas and activities

Requirements

Areas of CPD training

At least 33 per cent of CPD hours must relate to technical matters relevant to the area/s of engineering in which the applicant is registered.
The remaining CPD should be in related areas, for example, project management, ethics and law, risk management, communication, health and safety programs, occupational health and safety training and mentoring junior engineers.

Types of CPD activity

(i) Formal post-graduate study or tertiary course units whether or not undertaken for award purposes – no limit of hours.
(ii) Short courses, workshops, webinars, seminars and discussion groups, conferences, technical inspections and meetings – no limit of hours.
(iii) Learning activities in the workplace that extend competence in the regulated or a related area/s of engineering – maximum 75 hours.
(iv) Research which extends knowledge and skills – maximum 57 hours.
(v) Private study (engineering journals and magazines) which extend knowledge and skills – maximum 18 hours.
(vi) Service to the engineering profession (volunteer work, mentoring) – maximum 50 hours.
(vii) Publishing of articles in technical forums and preparation and presentation of papers for courses, conferences, seminars, etc - maximum 45 hours per paper or 75 hours per paper for papers subject to critical peer review before publication.
(viii) Professional engineers employed in tertiary teaching or academic research and registered as ‘practising’ – minimum of 40 hours of industry involvement in any 3-year period.

For further details of the CPD requirements under an assessment scheme, go to Public record of approved assessment entities.

CPD record keeping

You must keep a log of your CPD activities along with any supporting documentation.

You can log CPD activities in myCAV, with your industry association or using your own method of record keeping.

If you are audited by an Assessment Entity or Business Licensing Authority, the log will help prove you complied with the CPD requirements.

Both the BLA and approved assessment entities conduct audits of CPD activities. If you are audited, you must provide documents to support the reported CPD activities.

As a minimum, your CPD log and supporting documents need to demonstrate:

Your involvement in each CPD activity,
How the CPD activity was relevant to your registered areas of engineering, and
What you learnt from the CPD activity.

Industry associations may have additional standards or requirements for members.

A CPD log is available to all registered professional engineers in myCAV. The use of the myCAV log is optional.

CPD Hours Log available in myCAV

An online log is available in myCAV to keep track of your CPD activities. This tool makes it easier to add your required and completed CPD hours and upload supporting documentation, keeping it all in one place. You must ensure that you retain documentation to support the hours claimed under each CPD activity.

The hours log offers automatic calculation of required CPD hours based on practicing and employment status, along with the ability to record both technical and non-technical activities which are automatically categorised for compliance. Users can upload multiple supporting evidence through a document upload facility, while a running total feature provides a clear view of completed hours to help track progress.

Audit

You may be audited by the BLA or an Assessment Entity if you are a member. It’s important to keep a record of your CPD activities to ensure that you are audit ready. If you do not complete your CPD, the BLA may decide not to renew your registration.