Firms' guide to CPD

The requirements

ICAEW member firms, and other firms regulated by ICAEW, are expected to display the professional capability, skills and knowledge that uphold the value of the accountancy profession and the qualification.

Under ICAEW's CPD Regulations, all ICAEW member firms and other firms are required to:

• ensure that all of their members and relevant persons are in compliance with at least the minimum relevant and verifiable hours requirement for their CPD category for the professional work which their members and relevant persons carry out for their firm;
• maintain records of at least the relevant and verifiable CPD hours undertaken by all of their members and relevant persons; and
• make available to the ICAEW Quality Assurance Department (QAD), on request, their records for CPD carried out by their members and relevant persons.

The requirements enable ICAEW to monitor and ensure that ICAEW Chartered Accountants and relevant persons are undertaking sufficient CPD. They also provide strong assurance to oversight regulators, government, policymakers and the public that ICAEW Chartered Accountants are maintaining and enhancing their competence within ever-increasingly complex professional and regulatory environments.

Firms are able to use existing systems in place to monitor CPD, training and competence.

Many firms working in regulated areas already undertake such monitoring – for instance, under the Audit Regulations, firms are required to make sure all their principals and employees are competent to do audit work. 

ICAEW’s CPD Regulations give firms the chance to review current processes, reassess the CPD needs of staff, and enhance your firm’s practice risk management. 

Use ICAEW’s key steps guide and FAQs to ensure your firm is meeting its requirements. Ultimately firms have a responsibility to ensure staff are competent for the work they carry out.

Webinar: insights from monitoring

In October 2025, ICAEW recorded a webinar providing insights into the first year of monitoring under the CPD Regulations 2023.

Liz Shaw, Senior Quality Assurance Manager, and Karen Cook, Quality Assurance Manager, shared key findings from our reviews of the CPD records of members and firms. They highlighted good practice examples and offered practical guidance.

Watching the recording offers a good opportunity to review your understanding of ICAEW's CPD requirements as ICAEW continues to cycle through our CPD monitoring activity. 

• Watch the recording
• Read more on findings from CPD reviews at 10 large firms.

Key steps to take

1. Review the CPD Regulations and supporting guidance to help your firm’s ICAEW Chartered Accountants and relevant persons correctly assess which CPD category they sit in.

One size doesn’t fit all – ICAEW’s broad membership means its approach to CPD must meet a wide range of needs, from sole practitioners to the Big Four firms, as well as those working across different service lines and members working in business, the public sector or in not-for-profit organisations.

The CPD Regulations define CPD categories for ICAEW Chartered Accountants and relevant persons.

A driving factor for defining the CPD categories is the degree of risk to the public in the service or work that's being undertaken. ICAEW members and relevant persons are required to identify which CPD category is most applicable to them and to complete the specified minimum number of CPD hours each year, a proportion of which must be verifiable (see step 2).

Action required:

• Review ICAEW's CPD Regulations.
• Ensure all ICAEW Chartered Accountants and relevant persons working in the firm have confirmed which CPD category is most applicable to them, based on the type of work they do. 

Resources to help with this:

• Guidance on CPD categories.
• ICAEW's CPD self-assessment tool, designed to help members determine which CPD category is most applicable to them, based on the type of work they do.  

2. Verifiable CPD

Under ICAEW's CPD Regulations, members and relevant persons must to undertake and record a minimum number of verifiable hours of CPD.

Verifiable CPD is any activity that enables members to keep up to date and proficient in their role, and which can be evidenced.

The key things to remember about verifiable evidence is that it must be factually accurate, corroborated by an independent source and in a format that can be included in the staff member's CPD record.

Verifiable CPD is not limited to structured courses. Independent evidence can be provided for a wide range of actions, including from staff members' day-to-day work, from attending peer discussion groups and consulting with experts, to on-the-job research of technical areas and writing academic articles.

It can, of course, include courses and seminars, whether face-to-face or online. It’s less likely that firms are mandating activity, such as technical research for an article or presentation, yet these count as verifiable.  

All firms, ICAEW Chartered Accountants and relevant persons need to ensure they understand what counts as verifiable hours and that firms' processes for recording CPD includes the requirement to capture verifiable hours within the total CPD hours.

Action required:

• Check that your firm, ICAEW Chartered Accountants and relevant persons understand what is meant by verifiable hours and the minimum number of verifiable hours required for their CPD category.
• Check that your firm’s processes for recording CPD will capture verifiable hours.

Resources to help with this: 

• Guidance on what is verifiable.

3. Ethics training

The type and content of CPD that ICAEW Chartered Accountants and relevant persons choose to undertake is left to their discretion, with one exception: they must complete a minimum of one hour mandatory annual training aligned to ICAEW’s Code of Ethics each year.

ICAEW has produced a free online ethics CPD course to support members and relevant persons in meeting this requirement. However, this course does not have to be used and individuals can attend equivalent training through their firm or via an external provider, as long as it meets ICAEW’s learning objectives. 

Action required:

• Review ICAEW's ethics CPD course and decide if your firm will use this training or another ethics training resource.
• If a non-ICAEW ethics training resource is to be used, please check it's equivalent to the learning outcomes of ICAEW's ethics course.

4. Recording CPD

Firms don't need a complex system to record the CPD of staff and there isn’t a prescribed format. It’s a case of having the right oversight and being aware of, and driving, the training.

Firms need to ensure they are able to demonstrate compliance with the ICAEW CPD Regulations. 

The ICAEW CPD year runs from 1 November to 31 October. We understand that firms may have different CPD years, which may be aligned to the financial year, for example. We don't expect to change your CPD year, simply continue to record CPD in line with the firm's CPD year.

5. Monitoring compliance with the CPD Regulations

Firms should carry out some monitoring activities to check they are compliant with the requirements of the CPD Regulations. There isn't a standard way - how each firm does this will depend on several factors, including:

• number of staff;
• whether they use standard, centralised systems to record CPD; or
• how CPD is delivered throughout the firm.

The questions you may want to consider are:

• How do we oversee what CPD is being carried out by ICAEW Chartered Accountants/relevant persons in our firm?
• How do we make sure that people are in the right CPD categories and are complying with the requirements of the CPD Regulations?
• Does our process provide a way to record verifiable and non-verifiable hours?
• How do we ensure the relevant people have completed the right number of CPD hours?

We will always expect firms to carry out some checks to ensure they are compliant with the requirements Regulation 18a of the CPD Regulations. You may decide to rely on exception reporting (for example from CPD systems, if available) although we would recommend that you carry out some sample testing of employees CPD records to check:

• Are they in the right CPD category?
• Have they completed the minimum number of CPD hours (verifiable and non-verifiable) for the CPD category?
• Have they carried out a minimum of one hours’ ethics training?
• Do the records include appropriate support for verifiable CPD (suggest you sample test this too)?

If you identify issues during your monitoring, you will need a plan to address these including asking people to carry out additional CPD if there are gaps. 

ICAEW monitoring of compliance with CPD Regulations

The ICAEW QAD team uses a mix of monitoring methods designed to assess how firms and individuals meet their responsibilities under the CPD Regulations.

This includes carrying out CPD visits to firms to consider the CPD processes and assess how the firm is complying with the regulations. We review:

• CPD policies, procedures and communications;
• a selection of CPD activities (including ethics training); and
• the firm’s monitoring activities and any formal reporting. 

We also select a sample of people within the scope of the regulations and ask to see their CPD records, including their CPD reflection.

We will provide feedback after the visit, including advising if there are any areas where you are non-compliant. We will ask you to explain how any issues will be addressed and will follow up with a short visit the following year to check that you have carried out any agreed actions.

Repeat non-compliance may result in a report to the Practice Assurance Committee. 

On an anonymous basis the monitoring process will include regular dissemination of good practice identified and any issues arising to help support firms and individuals in complying with the CPD Regulations.