Twenty CPD examples that count, from formal courses to on-the-job learning, with tips on how to log each one so it stands up at appraisal.
Ask ten professionals what counts as continuing professional development and you'll get ten different answers, most of them too narrow. CPD is far wider than the courses you booked. It includes almost any deliberate learning activity that changes how you work - provided you can point to what you did, what you learned, and what changed as a result. Here are 20 practical CPD examples, grouped by type, with notes on how to log each one so it stands up at appraisal or revalidation.
Structured CPD examples (someone else set the agenda)
1. Accredited short courses. A one-day safeguarding refresher, a two-day project management workshop, a half-day GDPR update. Log the provider, hours, and the one thing you'll do differently in the coming month.
2. Conferences and sector summits. Count active session time, not room-time. Note the two or three sessions that changed your thinking rather than pretending the whole day was equally useful.
3. Webinars. Live or on-demand both count. On-demand is easy to inflate, so log the actual watch time and jot a reflection at the end.
4. In-house training. Anything your employer delivered internally: onboarding, systems training, new-policy briefings. Log the topic and the practical change it triggered.
5. Qualifications. Long-form study for a certificate, diploma or degree. Split the hours across the year rather than dumping them in one month.
6. E-learning modules. Compliance modules count when the content is new to you. If you're clicking through slides you've seen four times, that's compliance, not CPD.
7. Structured coaching or supervision. Time in a booked coaching or clinical supervision session, where an agenda was set and you did the reflective work.
Workplace CPD examples (learning while you're doing the job)
8. Shadowing a colleague. Spending a morning watching how someone senior handles a difficult client, or how a specialist team runs a case review. Log what you saw and what you'll adopt.
9. Being shadowed and receiving feedback. A peer observation followed by structured feedback. The learning is in the debrief, not the observation.
10. Post-incident or post-project reviews. Time spent structuring lessons from a project that went well or badly. Log the review, the lesson, and the change you'll make next time.
11. Mentoring or being mentored. Both directions count. Mentors learn from articulating tacit knowledge; mentees learn from the frame the mentor provides.
12. Leading a new piece of work. Taking on a stretch project outside your normal remit. The CPD hours are the reflective time you spend planning, reviewing and adjusting, not the delivery hours.
13. Serving on a working group or committee. If it exposes you to new content, new stakeholders, or new decision-making, it counts. Log the topic and what you learned.
Self-directed CPD examples (you set the agenda)
14. Reading professional journals, reports and sector research. Ofsted reports, NHS policy updates, ICAEW technical releases, HBR articles. Log the source, the reading time, and the single insight you took.
15. Reading a professional book. Split the total reading time across the weeks you read it. A book that changes your practice can be worth more CPD hours than a whole training day.
16. Podcasts, keynote videos and long-form talks. Content that engages with your profession, listened to actively. Not background noise on the school run.
17. Writing for your profession. Blog posts, LinkedIn articles, internal briefings, conference abstracts. Writing forces you to organise thinking - it counts.
18. Delivering training to peers. Preparing and running a session for colleagues. The prep time is where the learning happens.
19. Structured reflection using a model. Sitting down with a framework like Gibbs, Kolb or Schön to unpick a specific event. Log the event, the model used, and what changed.
20. Peer discussion groups. A regular slot with two or three colleagues to talk through cases, dilemmas, or interesting reading. Long-established in medicine and law; useful everywhere.
What doesn't count as CPD
A few honest caveats. Time you spent doing your day job at the normal standard isn't CPD - it's work. Mandatory training you've completed four times in the same form isn't CPD, it's compliance. Reading random LinkedIn posts isn't CPD unless you can point to a change in practice. Networking events with no learning agenda aren't CPD, however useful they were for other reasons. The test is always the same: can you say, in one sentence, what you'll do differently?
Logging the borderline cases
The examples above are only useful if you actually record them. A CPD log doesn't need to be elaborate. For each activity, capture the date, activity type, hours (split structured vs self-directed), a link or reference where relevant, and two to three sentences of reflection. Do it in the same week as the activity or the memory fades and the reflection turns into padding.
If you'd rather not build a spreadsheet, our free CPD tracker is set up for exactly this - all 20 activity types above map to its activity picker, and you get a read-only share link to send your appraiser when the time comes. It is free forever for individuals and moves with you if you change employer.
Building a balanced CPD year
The strongest CPD portfolios mix categories. A year built entirely of formal courses looks like a training log, not a development plan. A year built entirely of self-directed reading struggles the "verifiable" test at revalidation. Aim for roughly half structured and half self-directed, with a handful of activities from each of the three groups above. That balance shows a professional who is both taught and self-teaching, which is what regulators are looking for.
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