In this guide
Use this material to examine your own work. Confirm current requirements, forms and dates with IStructE before applying.
IStructE does not accredit company training schemes. It can accept records from a comparable scheme accredited by another body as evidence against the Core Objectives.
The mapping problem, and how to handle it
Another body's scheme is organised against its own competence framework, not against IStructE's ten Core Objectives. An ICE Training Agreement records progress against ICE's attributes; an HKIE scheme against HKIE's.
So the records demonstrate that structured, supervised training happened, and they carry the detail of what you did, but nobody has yet mapped that detail onto the ten objectives. That mapping is your job, and it is what the IPD final report forms are for.
The practical advice is to do the mapping early rather than at the end. Take the ten objectives, take your training records, and work out for each objective which entries support it and at what level. Two things usually fall out:
- Some objectives are richly covered because the other framework happens to emphasise them.
- One or two are barely touched, because the other framework does not ask for them in the same way: sustainability and commercial and legal are the common ones.
Finding that with two years to go is a development plan. Finding it three months before applying is a problem.
The structural engineering test
The guidance is specific: the experience must be in structural engineering. A scheme completed largely in geotechnics, highways or water may be impeccably accredited and still not carry the structural content the Core Objectives require. Be honest with yourself about the balance, because the reviewers will be.
Using this route
Questions to ask yourself
- Which of the ten objectives does my scheme barely touch?
Frameworks emphasise different things. The gap is predictable, and it is far cheaper to close early.
- Is my experience structural?
The guidance says it must be. An accredited scheme completed in an adjacent discipline does not satisfy that on its own.
Official sources
Selected publisher pages were rechecked in September 2026. Other source records were last checked in July 2026. Open the latest official document before relying on a requirement.