PPD for 2019 Joiners

If you joined the IFoA after 2 January 2019, you are required to obtain the Associateship qualification before you can progress to Fellow.

To gain Associateship you will need to complete the core principles and core practical examinations and a minimum of 24 months of PPD obtaining a minimum of 15 credits overall plus 2 formal learning hours per year. Once you have become an Associate and you wish to continue to Fellowship you will be able to continue your studies by completing the specialist examinations and a further 1 year of PPD.

Members may still sit any examination in any order, however, they must achieve the Associate award before Fellow. Once Associate membership is confirmed, a further 1 year (12 months) must be recorded in PPD before an application to Fellow is made.

Please see the table below for full details on how much PPD you will need.

PPD for joiners after 2019	Minimum number of months PPD required	Number of credits required	Minimum credits per year	Hours of formal learning activity per year and total
Associate	24	15	3	2 hours
Fellow	36 (12 additional months of PPD recording from when Associate Membership is confirmed)	20 (5 additional)	3	2 hours

Why do members who joined after 2nd January 2019 need to obtain Associate status prior to Fellow?

There was support for this from employers, industry bodies, other national actuarial associations, as well as from Students and Associates.

These responses played a decisive role in the IFoA Council coming to the following decisions:

To recognise more clearly Associates as qualified actuaries, positioning this qualification in line with the International Actuarial Association’s (IAA) global standard.
Any new student embarking on their studies under Curriculum 2019 needs to qualify as an Associate before proceeding to Fellowship.

What does this mean for IFoA students?

Changes were introduced from the 2 January 2019 to accompany the introduction of Curriculum 2019 which means that all students:

joining the IFoA after the 1 January 2019 will qualify as an Associate before, should they wish, progressing to Fellowship. Qualifying as an Associate requires completion of, or receiving exemptions from, the IFoA Core Principles and Core Practice subjects and completing a minimum of two years of pre-Associate Personal & Professional Development (PPD).
can take examinations in any order, including Specialist Principles and Specialist Advanced examinations, prior to becoming an Associate. However, before they can qualify as a Fellow, Associates will need to complete a further year of Fellowship-level PPD after becoming an Associate.