Completing the APC Diary Template (without ARC)

Posted on January 17, 2022 Updated on January 17, 2022

FOREWORD: Please be aware that this post is not an official RICS guidance.

All the advice given in this blog is based on my personal interpretation of the APC Candidate’s Guide which I have enhanced through many discussions with fellow APC Mentors and APC Assessors.

Sonia Desloges MRICS, Director, APC Support Ltd

Who needs to record an APC diary?

Not all candidates are required to keep an APC Diary. Only candidates with an RICS accredited degree and less than 10 years relevant experience need to follow a period of structured training which they must record in their Diary.

• Candidates with less than 5 years experience must record a MINIMUM of 24 months AND 400 days before being eligible for the Final Assessment interview.

• Candidates between 5 and 10 years experience must record a MINIMUM of 12 months AND 200 days before being eligible for the Final Assessment interview.

The 12 and 24 month periods are a minimum requirement and it is rare that candidates have gained sufficient relevant professional experience to sit their Final Assessment within the minimum period. You must therefore keep recording your Diary and Summary of Experience until you submit your final documentation for your interview, and beyond if you are unfortunately referred.

What is the purpose of the APC diary?

The diary is used to populate a summary of the days of experience gained under each competency and each level in a table called the log book.

The assessors will not see your diary, you only need to send your log book as part of your submission documents. You can download an extract of the RICS submission documents below if you have never seen the log book.

However, if the assessors feel that your log book is very dubious, they may ask for your diary to be audited. It is therefore worth giving it a bit of care and attention.

Is there an APC diary template?

The diary was previously recorded on line via the ARC system which automatically populated the log book.

With ARC being no longer in use, the RICS has produced a Word template (below) but you need to add up the days manually to create your log book which is a hugely tedious and time consuming task.

As an alternative, APC Support Limited has developed an APC Diary Template which allows you to record your daily work experience in a few clicks and automatically populates your log book. It saves you days of administrative work while providing live analytic data to monitor and discuss your progress with your counsellor.

APC Support Limited template

For those who have already started their diary on ARC, make sure to print and save a draft copy of both your diary and your log book. You can manually type the figures onto the RICS log book at the cut-off date and continue recording your diary on the new template.

What should I record?

You should only record your technical competencies (core and optional), not your mandatory competencies. On your days off or training days, you must simply leave the boxes blank.

You can only record full days or half days, not hours. If several competencies are covered within the same activity, select the dominant one or alternate over several days if the activity lasted more than half a day.

Ideally you should try to have a balanced experience at the end of your structured training but ultimately quality is more important than quantity. You should also aim to achieve circa 25 days in each optional competency, but once again it will depend on your personal circumstances.

Recording many days under the same competency will not suffice to attain Level 3 if all the experience gained is limited to the same basic and repetitive tasks; you will need to gain varied and in-depth experience in each competency in order to be ready to sit our Final Assessment. 

You may also find that you are recording very few days against certain competencies. But if you think carefully about it, you may notice that some competencies overlap and that you could alternate under which competencies you record certain activities.

Ultimately, a solid understanding of the competencies will be key in completing your Diary efficiently and you should make constant reference to your Pathway Guide .

It may happen that your structured training was put on hold for a few months (unemployment, maternity leave, sabbatical, etc.). In such case, I would suggest that you leave the relevant months blank and resume recording your experience until you have achieved the required 200 days or 400 days. You can add an explanation note to your log book if you want.

Our Tips

I found that my APC Diary was an invaluable source of examples for my record of experience, during my interview and to discuss my progress and training needs with my Supervisor and Counsellor.

For this reason, you should try to include a bit of information for each entry: name of project, brief description of the task undertaken, key figures, etc. You would be surprised how quickly you can forget all about a project!

BUT… be savvy with your time. We would recommend you to only provide details for potential summary of experience examples and keep your entries as short as possible. You can save associated files in a special APC folder for future reference.

Please find below an example of a completed APC diary using APC Support Limited template.

Speaking from personal experience, I strongly strongly advise all candidates to keep their APC Diary up-to-date. I have spent days going through my Outlook calendar and files trying to remember what I had been working on for the last couple of months! Trust me, this is not a smart way to be spending your time when you are trying to issue your Final Submission documents by the deadline while keeping up with the day job!

Recording your experience before graduation

At least 12 months of your structured training must take place AFTER graduation with a RICS accredited degree, but you may qualify for recording some of the experience that you have gained before graduation.

1-

If you are completing your degree part-time (either a day release BSc at University, a Degree Apprenticeship or a distance-learning post-graduate degree) and are employed in a relevant role, you can record your experience during your final year of study BUT you must have enrolled onto the APC (and paid the fee). You can only backdate your records by one month.

2-

If you have more than 5 year experience and are completing a post-graduate RICS accredited degree, you may be able to complete your degree and your 12-month structured training concurrently. Please contact the RICS to check whether you qualify.

3-

If you are completing a sandwich year / placement as part of your accredited degree, you can record your experience providing that you are registered as a RICS student member and that a RICS member or fellow (MRICS or FRICS) acts as your Counsellor and provides you with a letter confirming the dates of your placement. Your Counsellor must also sign off the competency levels that you have achieved during your placement.

After graduation, you must enroll onto the APC (and pay the fee) as soon as employed and record at least 12 months post-graduation experience with a minimum of 400 days in total.

Further help

If you are still unsure about the best way forward, please feel free to get in touch with us at Sonia@APCsupport-ltd.co.uk.

If you need support with your APC, we offer a complete programme of APC mentoring at all stages of the APC preparation. Please visit our website to discover the full range of our services: APC Support Limited.

Please feel free send me an invite on LinkedIn if you want to connect.