Maintaining and developing your competence through continuing professional development (CPD) is important at all stages of your career, to ensure that you remain competent and employable and to protect the safety of all those who use and work on railways worldwide
It is appropriate for all professional engineers and technicians, wherever they live in the world.
The IRSE expects all members to maintain their own competence and help others to do so, as detailed in the IRSE CPD policy and in IRSE CPD Guidance (see document library below). IRSE recommends that you use the Engineering Council database MyCareerPath to record your CPD plans, activities and reflections.
Those who are professionally registered as Engineering Technicians, Incorporated Engineers and Chartered Engineers through the UK's Engineering Council are reminded that recording evidence of their CPD undertaken is a requirement of their professional registration. Professionally active registrants who persistently do not respond to or engage with requests for CPD records by the institution through which they registered risk removal from the register. IRSE's process for this is within the document library below.
Your professional competence is your own. To maintain and develop it is your responsibility and your investment in your future career. The IRSE can help you by providing:
Technical events such as local technical meetings and visits, presidential technical papers which are live-streamed and recorded, international conventions, seminars and conferences. The Minor Railways Section hold annual training workshops for those working in S&T maintenance on minor and heritage railways. The Younger Members' Section organise revision sessions for those interested in, and sitting, the IRSE professional examination. All these events are announced on the IRSE events page.
Our monthly journal IRSE News, technical papers, text books and recordings of presidential technical papers.
We have our own archive at head office and our members can use the IET library at Savoy Place, London, by appointment.
The IRSE professional examination enables members to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of a broad range of technical and operational subjects relevant to train control and communications systems engineering and management.
All members are encouraged to record their planning, professional development activities and reflections on these. IRSE members have access to Mycareerpath, a free database to record their development activities. Examples of personal development plans and CPD records are available and Word templates for action planning and activity recording are available for all to use - all of these are in the document library below.