Continuing Professional Development

The CIPS CPD platform, My Learning, enables you to easily record CPD activities and complete your reflective learning statements. Reflecting on what you have learnt and considering how you will use your new skills and knowledge in future is an important step in your CPD cycle to drive a continuous learning journey, ultimately improving performance.

CIPS CPD is hours-based, meaning activities are recorded as a unit of your time. The minimum requirement is 30 hours of CPD within a rolling 12-month period.

Through your CIPS membership, you can access My Learning via MyCIPS. Some of the activities and events you complete directly with CIPS will automatically record to your My Learning records, meaning you simply need to go in and complete the reflective learning statement. You can also add your own CPD activities as and when you complete them.

For more details on the CIPS CPD platform and how to complete your records, please visit My Learning in your MyCIPS area.

CIPS recommends you undertake a minimum of 30 CPD hours in a rolling 12-month period in order to keep up-to-date and be able to respond competently to changes in the business environment, organisational requirements or client needs. This is a modest amount given the range of activities which qualify.

The minimum amount of time that can be accepted as a recognisable unit of CPD is 30 minutes of learning. You can add together smaller units of one learning activity to make up a unit, e.g., 'reading Knowledge & Insight articles for a few minutes per day over a week can soon add up to 30 minutes.

Almost everything that improves and updates your knowledge and skills is considered as CPD. CIPS is committed to championing the benefits of CPD by providing a number of different channels through your membership, such as member events, technical resources and exclusive member only content, skills training and eLearning, plus much more.

There are two types of CPD learning: structured and unstructured. Structured learning is regarded as more formal, typically including training courses, eLearning or workshops. Unstructured, also referred to as self-directed CPD, is more informal. It does not always follow a consistent or methodical approach, and can include activities such as reading articles, general study or research, participating in discussion groups or even on-the-job learning.

To help structure your development planning, learning activities fall into three categories:

• Knowledge: improving your theoretical and practical knowledge of procurement
• Skills: improving your ability to do your job as a procurement professional
• Advocacy: improving non-procurement related knowledge and skills

CIPS does not require you to have a fixed proportion of your CPD in any one category, but it is recommended to spend around 10 hours on each category. Having a balanced blend of activity types and topics will increase your engagement and knowledge retention. You should choose activities which address your development needs.

If you have a career break for parental leave, physical or mental ill-health, or redundancy you may have a break in your CPD activity. However, you may choose to use CPD activities to keep you in touch with your profession and even support your re-entry into work. Activities can include attending branch events, and reading through professional journals, web-based resources and eLearning.

For Chartered Professional members, should your CPD be selected for auditing purposes, you will be asked to provide evidence confirming your break in work. If you have any concerns about how to record your CPD during this time, contact CIPS Professional Licensing team at charter@cips.org or refer to the CIPS Chartered Status Policy on Career Breaks.

You can download our policies and guidance by clicking the link below: