Monitored Professional Development Scheme (MPDS)

Before you can join MPDS, you will need to be an Affiliate member to register as an undergraduate user, or an Associate Member of IMechE if you are registering as a graduate member.

Details of IMechE membership grades can be found on our Become a member page.

However, you can also register onto MPDS if you are a member of another professional engineering institution. In those cases, you would need to enclose with your MPDS registration form a copy of your ID card, or last Subscription letter/email from your institution. 

Yes. If you are completing a year in industry/placement year as part of your undergraduate degree, you may register onto MPDS to record your development during the year. You will need to be an IMechE Affiliate member first (or a member of another professional engineering institution) and you will then need to complete an MPDS registration form.

Please note that undergraduate students are not eligible to claim previous experience when registering onto MPDS.

Undergraduates registering onto a university PTU scheme will not be required to pay a fee for using MPDS. Undergraduates registering onto an accredited company scheme (PDS) will be required to pay the annual MPDS fee to cover their placement year.

For Chartered Engineer, typically four years’ worth of quarterly reports and annual assessments should be completed and submitted before applying for registration, however previous experience reduces this timeframe by the amount claimed.

For Incorporated Engineer, typically three years’ worth of quarterly reports and annual assessments should be completed and submitted before applying for registration, however previous experience reduces this timeframe by the amount claimed.

Previous experience is any relevant engineering experience that your mentor agrees meets EngC UK-SPEC requirements, such as work experience on student placements, or at a previous company.

The maximum amount of previous experience you can claim is 52 weeks if you’re working toward IEng and 78 weeks if you’re working toward CEng.

Your mentor may want to see evidence of your experience, such as in the following:

• Log books
• Project or assignment notes
• Learning experiences
• Quarterly reports

You or your mentor will need to link this evidence to the relevant EngC UK-SPEC competence. Your mentor will have to assess your experience before you register onto the MPDS company scheme.

View our Previous Experience Claims Guide for more information.

We do not accept claims for previous experience if they are requested after you have registered.

To find out whether your employer has an accredited MPDS, we recommend making enquiries through your manager and HR department. In most instances they should be able to confirm this for you. Companies with an accredited MPDS will have a designated Scheme Administrator who will be able to help with your registration.

If your company does not have an accredited MPDS which you can join, an alternative option is the Supported Registration Scheme (SRS). SRS utilises the same online reporting tools as MPDS but is designed for individuals who are not working for an organisation accredited for MPDS.

Employers who do not currently have an accredited scheme may be interested in learning more about how MPDS can help their organisation.

Once you have received an email confirming that your registration onto MPDS has been completed,  please log into the members' area via My Account and then scroll down the Welcome page until you reach “Your Professional Development”. Select “MPDS/SRS Tools for Developing Engineers” as shown below:

You’ll then be taken to your personal online reporting account.

If you experience any issues logging in or receive the message “Access Denied”, please contact our MPDS Team, mpds@imeche.org so that we can assist you.

Setting a competence achievement level helps you to benchmark where you are in your development. Typically, you’ll see a steady rise in your achievements, particularly between year 3 and 4. It’s a useful guide for your final year, because your mentor can indicate the minimum score you need to register as a professional engineer. The minimum competence levels expected before you can make an application for professional registration are three level 3s and two level 2s.

We recommend that you use the planning tool in your account to identify your objectives and map them against the EngC UK-SPEC competences. You’ll need to create your plans at the start of each quarter.

Your progress throughout your development is assessed against the UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence (UK-SPEC). Every time you achieve a new level of competence; you’re one step closer to becoming a professional engineer.

It’s not compulsory to make plans and submit evidence on the scheme, but using these functions can add real value to your report and will help to make the assessment process much easier. Organising meetings with your mentor can help you get the best quality advice and support and they offer a chance for you to discuss any aspects of the scheme that you find challenging. You should try and meet up with your mentor at least once every quarter.

Your mentor is there to help you achieve the highest levels of competence, so make the most of their support and feedback when you can.

More information about using plans and evidence can be found in our MPDS toolkit for Developing Engineers.

Our MPDS plans are not automatically created including a Q4 report, as the 4th quarter features the Annual Assessment instead. The Annual Assessment provides an overview of quarter 4, the year as a whole and the mentor’s report of competence against UK-SPEC.

However, a Q4 report can be added manually if the company or MPDS mentor feels that this would be of benefit to the developing engineer. In such cases, please contact mpds@imeche.org and we will be happy to arrange this for you.

Quarterly reports and annual assessments are compulsory elements of MPDS. Plans and evidence are optional but can play a valuable role in helping you to set objectives and competences, and in showing how you achieved them. Full details of the compulsory and optional submissions which you can make are found in our MPDS toolkit for Developing Engineers.

Plans (optional submissions):

Plans allow you to set aims, objectives and competences for the quarter you’re working in. Your mentor can tell you if they’re achievable – and if you’ll have the necessary resources to attain them.

If you don’t achieve your objectives, just readdress them in your next plan. If you think you don’t have sufficient opportunities for development, contact your mentor or your organisation’s training supervisor. It’s up to you to make sure you receive the right placements within your company.

Evidence (optional submissions):

Although it is not compulsory to upload evidence items, recording examples of your activities and assignments will enable you to build a portfolio of evidence demonstrating your levels of UK-SPEC competences.

You may wish to include a summary of any project roles, courses, risk assessments and quality management tasks that you’ve completed during the quarter. You can upload evidence as a report, calculations, a company appraisal or even a drawing – however you feel best demonstrates the competences you hope to achieve.

Your mentor will review your submitted evidence against the UK-SPEC and will score your levels of competence. These competences will then appear in your end of year Annual Assessment.

Evidence scores are not averaged out. The score reflects your single piece of evidence for that particular sub-competence. These are auto mapped to your Evidence Competence Report, showing where you have gaps in the competence framework. Your mentor will manually insert the overall competence score for A, B, C, D and E on the Annual Assessment Report, but these won’t show up on your Evidence Competence Report. They will instead appear on the Annual Competence Report. Developing Engineers will be able to access both the Evidence Competence Report and Annual Competence Report from their Summary page.

Please note that some organisations don’t allow you to record work-based evidence outside their area of control, so always follow your company’s guidelines for evidence submission. Don’t upload evidence that’s secure or commercially sensitive. If you do upload anything that needs to be removed, please contact the MPDS helpline and we’ll take it down for you immediately.

The evidence size limit should be no bigger than 10MB. If it exceeds this, we would advise you to split the file into two or three parts and upload them as separate items. It is possible to upload a maximum of eight evidence items per quarter.

Reports (compulsory submissions):

Quarterly reports are designed to show the key elements of your achievements, challenges and contributions throughout each stage of your development. They are a compulsory part of the scheme because proving your level of monitored progress is vital to your success on MPDS.

The objectives and competences assigned to any plans and evidence during this quarter will automatically be added to your report.

You should make comments on any objectives you set for the quarter and, if you haven’t submitted evidence for this quarter, you should use the competence codes (e.g. B1, D2 etc) to match the paragraphs in your report to UK-SPEC.

Include details of:

• Any presentations or reports you wrote
• Feasibility studies
• Meetings with suppliers and customers
• Process and design reviews
• Responsibilities
• Avoid all jargon. Keep your report between 200-500 words.

We recommend that you aim to keep to the quarterly reporting dates of your MPDS as closely as possible. The ‘Professional Development Summary’ page of your MPDS will enable you check when your reports are due.

Annual Assessment (compulsory submissions):

Once a year, you will submit an evaluation of your development over the course of that year. The Annual Assessment provides a summary of quarter 4, the year as a whole and should show how you achieved the competences set out in UK-SPEC.

Your mentor will then review your work and award the level of competency you have achieved, so that you can move on to the next stage of your development.

Like Quarterly Reports, Annual Assessments are compulsory to submit and are crucial to your success on the scheme. 

Reports relating to periods of previous experience are not compulsory, however we recommend that any reports which you have produced be uploaded as evidence items.

Please note that reports cannot be uploaded into credited quarters but instead we recommend that any reports relating to the period of previous experience which has been claimed be uploaded into the first active quarter as items of evidence. Each MPDS quarter can accommodate up to 8 items of evidence.

Further information about uploading evidence items can be found in our MPDS toolkit for Developing Engineers.

There is no set template for previous experience reports, but this should follow the same format as a quarterly report where you would need to demonstrate with examples how the experience meets the EngC UK-SPEC competences.

When you log in to the MPDS tools, you’ll see your Professional Development Summary. This page will also show much previous experience has been claimed. These quarters will be shown as credited, and you’ll start your reporting from the first active quarter. For example, if 52 weeks of previous experience have been claimed, year 1 will be credited and the first active quarter will be year 2 quarter 1.

Although reports may be written in a Word document and uploaded into the MPDS tools later on, reports may only be submitted into the active quarter and cannot therefore be uploaded in bulk.  Only one quarter should be active at a given time. For this reason, we recommend that reports are uploaded on a quarterly basis.

However, to enable you to draft your objectives in advance, plans may be submitted for the next quarter before the current active quarter has been completed.

On MPDS, you can only upload reports or annual assessments into the active quarter, and the active quarter will only progress once the mentor has approved the relevant quarterly report (or annual assessment).

If your active quarter has not progressed automatically, please contact your mentor to check whether they have accepted it yet. If your mentor is experiencing any difficulty accepting the item, please ask them to check that all mandatory comments and scores have been input and saved. If they are still unable to approve the item, please advise them to contact our MPDS team directly.

If your active quarter has not progressed correctly, or your active quarter has advanced, but you need to go back any make an amendment, please contact our MPDS team and we will be happy to assist you.

Provided that you have completed all mandatory sections of your report; after saving a draft version you should then have the option to submit to your mentor.  Further details may be found in our MPDS toolkit for Developing Engineers.

If you have completed all the necessary information and are still unable to submit, please contact our MPDS team by emailing mpds@imeche.org.

We recommend that your mentor checks that they have completed all the mandatory sections of the report/ annual assessment. For the annual assessment each of the 5 competence scores must be input and then individually updated. Once all necessary comments (including the Mentor’s Report section), and scores have been included, the mentor should be able to save a draft, and then either accept or return the submission.  Our MPDS toolkit for mentors outlines the process for reviewing submissions.

If your mentor has completed all the necessary information and is still unable to accept/return the item, we would be grateful if they could contact our MPDS team directly by emailing mpds@imeche.org.

It’s important to keep on top of your professional development if you want your MPDS to be successful. You will need to keep regular contact with your mentor and make sure you both find a way to stick to your reporting deadlines.

It is good practice to keep a regular check on your report due dates in your ‘Professional Development Summary’ page.

If your report is late because your mentor hasn’t yet approved your plans, evidence or reports, you should discuss the problem with them so that a solution may be found. If the problem persists, we recommend that you discuss the matter with your scheme administrator.

We encourage keeping to the annual reporting dates on the MPDS route as this helps to ensure that the professional development being recorded will demonstrate current competence levels. This is particularly important in the last two years of the MPDS scheme.

Any professionally registered IEng or CEng engineer can register as an MPDS mentor. They do not have to be an IMechE member, but they must be professionally registered as either a CEng or IEng engineer with one of the Professional Engineering Institutions (PEIs) licenced by the Engineering Council.

When processing MPDS registrations, we will check that all mentors are currently professionally registered with the Engineering Council.

Any mentors who are not IMechE members would need to complete the online Mentor registration form so that we can confirm their eligibility.

If your mentor has changed, you must email mpds@imeche.org with the updated details. It is your responsibility to follow up your mentor and ensure your mentor has provided us with the mentor registration form.

Experienced engineers who are not professionally registered, could still be a mentor by supporting developing engineers under the SRS or by becoming a delegate mentor.

A Developing Engineer on the CEng Route should ideally be mentored by a CEng Mentor. However, in exceptional circumstances, they can be mentored by a IEng Mentor. The IEng Mentor should then ensure that they are fully aware of the differences between the competencies required for IEng and CEng: UK-SPEC latest edition.

When you are ready to apply for Chartership, your IEng Mentor can be one of your sponsors, however you will also require a CEng sponsor to support your application.

A delegate mentor is an experienced engineer who isn’t necessarily professionally registered as a CEng or IEng, but has the knowledge and understanding to review developing engineers’ reports. Delegate mentors can’t sign off reports under the MPDS, but they can make suggestions and recommendations. The registered mentor gives reports final approval.

If a developing engineer spends an extended period working in a location which makes it difficult for them to meet regularly with their registered mentor, a delegate mentor can take on the responsibility for day-to-day mentoring.

Furthermore, if, within a company, there are not enough professionally registered mentors to support the organisation’s developing engineers effectively, the employer or registered mentor could appoint a delegate mentor to assist with some of the workload involved.

Your mentor will review all the work that you submit, including Plans, Evidence, Quarterly Reports and Annual Assessments. They’ll use the Engineering Council UK-SPEC competence framework to score your competence levels and provide you with feedback and support.

This will enable you to track your progress, highlight areas for development, and to tailor your continued development to address these gaps. This allows you to develop a strong understanding of the competences which will help you throughout the final application process.

MPDS mentors are professionally registered engineers within your organisation, or in a similar field to you, who have agreed to help you plan and reach your personal objectives.

Through regular meetings and scheduled submissions, you’ll learn more about the UK-SPEC competences you’ll be working towards each quarter and how best to meet them.

Your mentor will aim to support your professional development to the best of their ability, so you should be able to discuss any challenges or difficulties with them in order to find practical solutions or identify any training which may be required.

The support of your mentor will play a valuable role as you develop your competence. Your mentor is committed to helping you achieve your objectives and should review your submissions as soon as possible. So, if they are continually unavailable or on extended leave, you will need to discuss being assigned a replacement mentor with your scheme administrator.

Your MPDS mentor cannot attend your professional review interview.  They can, however, attend the professional review interview of another candidate as part of their own CPD activity.

Yes, your mentor may be one of your two sponsors.

If you are applying for Chartership, but your mentor is an Incorporated Engineer, they can still be one of your sponsors, however you will also require a Chartered Engineer as the other sponsor to support your application.

Please email mpds@imeche.org and tell us the reason for suspending your MPDS (e.g. return to university, career break, maternity leave) and when you want your suspension to start.  Make sure all your quarterly and annual reports are up to date before then.  You can restart your MPDS from where you left off. Please note there are no refunds for MPDS fees.

When you wish to resume reporting, please email us and we will assist you with this process.

Remember, even though your MPDS will be suspended, you will still need to make sure you pay your IMechE subscription fee to prevent your membership from lapsing. If you have any further questions about fee subscriptions, please call IMechE Subscriptions on +44 (0)1925 214050. 

If you’re joining a new organisation with an accredited MPDS, you’ll need to complete our transfer form so that we can add you to their scheme.

If your new company isn’t accredited for MPDS you cannot continue on MPDS , but you can transfer to the Supported Registration Scheme (SRS). SRS utilises the same online reporting tools as MPDS to provide a disciplined and regular reporting framework aligned to the EngC’s UK-SPEC competences. You still have the benefit of having a mentor supporting you but, SRS simply provides a structured approach to help your Initial Professional Development (IPD). You are able to self-monitor your progress and once your mentor feels you are ready, apply for professional registration.

Firstly, we would recommend speaking with your company scheme administrator as a matter of urgency. They should be able to confirm whether your employer wishes to assign a new mentor, or whether they feel it would be more beneficial for you to continue with the same mentor.

If your scheme administrator agrees that you may keep the same mentor, you would then need to need to have a discussion with your mentor to check whether they are still willing to meet regularly and provide the support that you need. If this is the case, you don’t need to do anything, and they can remain linked to your MPDS.

If your mentor says they are unable to carry on meeting with you, you’ll need to find someone else to take on the role. Your scheme administrator should be able to assist you with this. Remember, all new mentors must be a CEng or IEng registered with the Engineering Council. Therefore, they can be registered with IMechE, or with any other Professional Engineering Institution. If your new mentor isn’t already registered with us, they’ll need to complete a Mentor Registration Form.

Email us at mpds@imeche.org with your new mentor's details and we will link them to your MPDS.

Please ensure that your Annual Assessment has been accepted by your mentor and download copies of any submissions which you may need to access, before advising our MPDS team that you have returned to university. Your MPDS will be suspended but your work will remain stored on our records for you to resume reporting after graduation.

After graduation, you will be required to complete a new MPDS registration form. Your MPDS will be reactivated from the active quarter which you have already reached, and your new start date will be applied so that your quarterly dates accurately reflect your employment. 

Yes. It is possible to switch from the IEng route to the CEng route (or vice versa), so that you can report against a different set of competences.  If you are considering switching routes, please advise our MPDS team at mpds@imeche.org.

Yes, your MPDS can be extended if you have discussed the situation with your mentor, and they agree that you need more time to gain the appropriate competence levels.

Additional MPDS years can be added (up to a maximum of year 6) if required. Please email mpds@imeche.org and confirm how long you want to extend your MPDS, and we will be happy to arrange this for you.

We recommend that you continue writing your quarterly reports into your extension period, finishing with an Annual Assessment to ensure that you have reached the required minimum competence level.

If the posting abroad is only short term (e.g. several weeks) then this will have no effect on your MPDS status and everything should continue as before. However, if your posting lasts for three months or longer in duration, it is crucial that your company ensures the accreditation of your MPDS extends to the site of your posting. If you are not sure, please ask your Scheme Administrator to clarify this for you (or they can contact IMechE for details of how to get the site covered).

It is imperative during your posting abroad to maintain frequent contact with your Mentor. Therefore, if you can’t meet with your mentor while you’re overseas, you may want to select another mentor to work with during your posting. They will still need to be CEng or IEng registered with the Engineering Council. Alternatively, you may use an on-site delegate mentor while your MPDS mentor continues to sign-off your paperwork (especially if your posting abroad extends for more than six months).

By continuously assessing your competence against the Engineering Council UK-SPEC competence framework, your mentor will be able to advise you when you reach at least the minimum competence levels expected for professional registration (three level 3s and two level 2s). 

When you are ready to apply for professional registration and full membership, you should complete the online application form available within the My Account area. To access this, you will need to go to Online Applications, then select Online Application Checker. Under the Online application forms section will be the link to both the Chartered Engineer and Incorporated Engineer application forms.

Please note:  We recommend that you submit your application within six months of completing your final annual assessment in order to ensure that your competences are up to date.

All of the work you have completed on MPDS and any additional experience can be referenced in the application.

Once you are professionally registered as IEng or CEng, you may wish to consider becoming a mentor yourself so that you can share the experience which you have gained to help more developing engineers. Further details of mentoring may be found at our webpage for mentors.

We also have a large network of volunteers that you can join to help to develop your skills and give back to the engineering community. To find out more about how you can be involved, please see our dedicated page that can be accessed through your My Account page: https://www.imeche.org/my-account/volunteer-resource-centre/.

After achieving professional registration, you will still be classed as a Young Member for up to ten years and could continue to be involved in one of our Young Members Boards.  In general, positions on YMB have a 2-year tenure, and there may be certain eligibility requirements depending on the role for which you are volunteering. Find out more about YMB or contact us at youngmembers@imeche.org.