Easy Ways To Top Up Your CPD (Continuing Professional Development)

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is an annual requirement for Energy Assessors. 

Once you have qualified, and joined an accreditation scheme, you'll need to upload your CPD on an annual basis so that it can be checked and confirmed as suitable.

For DEA's, there is a minimum of 10 hours required, however there is also a further 5 hours required for every other strand that you are accredited for.

Therefore, a DEA and a Retrofit Assessor, would need to undertake at least 15 hours of CPD each year.

You can upload your CPD record in your ECMK account in the Member Management section here:

You then get the option to enter details of the CPD, including the number of hours you are claiming. Upload any evidence such as certificates or notes.

Once uploaded, the team will take a look and confirm once your CPD has been verified.

ECMK state that forms of CPD can include:

• professional training courses - relevant training courses, college or university courses etc.
• self-study (reading) - free but you'll need to make notes.
• work experience - shadowing a colleague can apply here.
• event attendance (seminar days, conferences and exhibitions for Energy Assessors) - related industry events can apply eg. constructions/homes etc (not events totally unrelated)

Professional courses are counted as CPD, so if you are considering taking another course you may want to take a look at other training available from Energy Trust.

Click here to view our online courses: https://energy-trust.co.uk/online-courses/

For example, if you went on to take the Level 3 Award in Energy Efficiency for Older and Traditional Buildings, you could add a number of CPD hours to your record.

Reading

Ecmk allow up to 5 hours CPD per annum to be claimed for reading relevant industry materials and resources. 

They publish four Technical Bulletins per year and will award 1-hour CPD for reading each of these. 

Back issues can be found in Assessor Hub > Scheme Documents (search Technical Bulletin). 

This leaves 1-hour worth of reading for other relevant published materials.

To claim CPD hours for reading, simply make a few short notes referencing the source and briefly outlining the main subjects read and understood, then upload these notes directly into your Assessor Hub account as submission of evidence. 

4 Hours of Free Courses with ECMK

As an ECMK member you are entitled to 4 free hours towards online CPD per annum. 

In order to claim these hours, please select up to four 1-hour courses from the ECMK website and email [email protected] with the titles and dates of the courses you wish to attend. 

ECMK will confirm your booking and the CPD hours will automatically get added to your Assessor Hub account, once you have attended and completed the courses.

Industry Events

Some industry events are paid entry, however there are a number of free events out there, which may be easy to get to depending on where you are travelling from. 

Some examples of exhibitions in London include London Build and Grand Designs Live.

Other Professional Bodies

Many other professional bodies offer free CPD that can count towards your required hours.

CABE - Charted Institute of Building Engineers - offer a number of free CPD sessions to non members at https://cbuilde.com/events/event_list.asp#

RICS - Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors - offers a number of free CPD sessions to all at https://www.rics.org/training-events/all-training-and-events

You now know that there are a number of ways to top up your CPD - with many free options available.

Don't forget to keep a record and upload your CPD to your accreditation scheme. We wish you all the best continuing your learning.