IAM Certified Consultant Programme: Specification

1. Purpose and scope

This specification establishes the IAM Certified Consultant Programme: a professional certification for people who advise organisations on how they are managed and run, whether as external consultants or as internal advisers, in public, private, and non-profit organisations of any size, in any country.

The programme has two designations, IAM Associate Consultant and IAM Certified Consultant. The title and the designations are generic so that they travel across countries, sectors, and languages. The programme covers management and administration in all their aspects — strategy, operations, people, finance, governance, customers, and change — and prepares holders to advise any type of organisation.

The programme is built for busy professionals. Courses are short and workplace-based, portfolios are assembled from work candidates have already done, and every step is completed in the candidate’s own account on the IAM Portal. Experienced consultants may go directly to assessment without taking a course.

2. Designations

The designations carry no post-nominal letters of their own. The designation is written after the holder’s membership post-nominal, which shows career stage, while the designation shows consulting competence. Senior consultants therefore hold the same designation as other Certified Consultants, and their seniority shows through the grade — for example, “SFInstAM, IAM Certified Consultant”.

An IAM Certified Consultant may show a specialism, set by the case studies submitted and adding no extra learning. The four specialisms together cover every area of management:

• Operations and Digital — operations, service delivery, quality, supply chain, projects, digital, and AI-enabled working

• People and Communication — leadership, HR, and workforce, organisation design, culture, internal communication, customer, and stakeholder relations

• Finance and Governance — financial management, costing, investment appraisal, procurement, governance, risk, compliance, audit, and records

• Strategy and Change — strategy, markets, and customers, business models, public value, transformation, and performance

A sector tag may be added — for example, “IAM Certified Consultant (Finance and Governance, Public Sector)”. A course from the IAM Role Mastery Series may be taken as a role option, leading to a second, independent certificate.

As with every IAM post-nominal, a designation may be used only while the holder’s membership is current and in Good Standing.

3. Entry routes and minimum criteria

Each designation has two routes to the same assessment. On the course route, the candidate takes the IAM course and then the assessment. On the direct route, an experienced candidate goes straight to the assessment. The standard, the assessment and the designation are identical on both routes.

Associates progress to IAM Certified Consultant once they reach three years of consulting or advisory work, by taking the Certified assessment; the Associate assessment is not repeated. Holders of recognised consulting credentials — for example, the Certified Management Consultant (CMC) designation, or a regulated qualification in management consulting — will normally take the direct route.

The membership grade is assessed in the same application under Regulation 3 of the Membership Regulation (Section 8), so the candidate makes one application and pays one fee.

4. The courses

The two courses are IAM Certified Programmes delivered under the IAM Certified Programmes Handbook (IAM-CPH-2026-001) and the Blended Distance Learning Policy (IAM-BDL-2026-001). Each is available in three arrangements: distance learning online across the published weeks; face-to-face, as contact days followed by workplace application and a return session; or blended, combining the online units with one or two contact days that replace the matching live sessions. All three carry the same hours and outcomes, are assessed against the same rubric, and lead to the same certificate, which never states which arrangement was taken. Programme Learning Hours (PLH) include live sessions, online units, reading, and workplace application. The courses match the size of the Institute’s Practitioner (40 PLH) and Professional (48 PLH and above) Certified Programmes, at about five to six hours a week.

Modules

Both courses have four modules that follow the consulting cycle. What changes between the courses is the level of responsibility the modules are taught to. Every module combines a live practice session, online units, reading, and a workplace activity that builds the learner’s assessment evidence, so no separate project is needed. The full syllabuses are IAM-CCP-2026-002 and IAM-CCP-2026-003.

IAM Consultancy Leadership Masterclass. For experienced IAM Certified Consultants: structuring complex engagements, leading consulting teams, business development and client portfolios, and practice management, including contracts, risk, indemnity, and quality. It joins the IAM Masterclass series, counts as Structured CPD and leads to no separate designation.

5. Delivery for busy professionals

• Monthly intakes, with a single registration valid for 12 months.

• Mobile-friendly online units of 60 to 90 minutes; live sessions in evening and weekend slots suited to the time zones of each intake, all recorded for catch-up.

• Three practice activities need live participation: the client contracting conversation and the presentation practice on the Associate Consultant Course, and the portfolio clinic on the Certified Consultant Course. A learner who cannot attend submits a recording, or draft work for the clinic, and receives tutor feedback.

• Progress is tracked under the Learner Progress Tracking Process (IAM-LPT-2026-001): a tutor contacts any learner who misses a fortnight’s activity and agrees a catch-up plan.

• Portfolios built from existing work on IAM templates. Each case study may be written or submitted as a recorded presentation.

• Client evidence the candidate already holds replaces reference letters, so no application waits on someone else to write something.

• Professional discussions held online and booked by the candidate through the IAM Portal.

• A published maximum: the decision is issued within 10 working days of the final assessment component.

• In-house delivery for employer cohorts of 10 or more, as contact days at the employer’s premises or as a closed online cohort.

• Delivery by the Institute or by IAM Recognised Centres holding a Programme Approval.

6. Assessment

Assessment rules

• Every component has three assessment opportunities at no charge, in line with the published fees policy. A resubmission addresses only the criteria not yet met.

• Evidence is judged against the Consultancy Competence Overlay (Appendix A) and the Professional Standards. Criteria are judged Met or Not yet met; online checks are passed at the stated pass mark.

• Client material may be anonymised; the Institute may verify client evidence directly with the client.

• Identity is verified when the candidate opens their IAM Portal account and confirmed on camera against photo identification at the start of every professional discussion.

• One in ten Associate applied tasks, chosen at random, and any where there is cause for concern, are followed by a 10-minute online call in which the candidate talks through their work.

• The work must be the candidate’s own, under the integrity provisions of the Code of Ethics. Candidates declare any use of AI tools.

• No assessor assesses a candidate they have tutored, employed, or worked with.

• Awards are decided by the Consultancy Assessment Panel, never by the tutor or a single assessor.

7. Fees

7.1 Country tiers

Fees follow the Institute’s published country tiers, based on the World Bank income classification: country of residence for individual candidates, country of delivery for per-learner fees, and principal office for organisations. Candidate fees use the individual scale; organisational fees use the corporate scale. The standard, the assessment and the designation are identical in every tier.

7.2 Fee schedule

All amounts are in pounds sterling and exclusive of VAT and equivalent taxes.

Included in every package and assessment fee: all assessment components with three opportunities each; the eCertificate and verifiable digital badge; listing in the IAM Directory and Verify a Member; and 12 months’ membership at the grade the evidence supports. No application and administration fee is charged.

Recognised Centres set their own tuition and pay the Institute the assessment-and-award fee per learner, at the tier of the country of delivery, plus the standard Programme Approval fee under the Centre Recognition Scheme.

7.3 Worked examples

• A consultant resident in a Tier 2 country takes the Certified Consultant Course package for £650, covering the course, assessment, award, and a year’s membership at the grade the evidence supports. If that grade is MInstAM, the subscription from the second year is £62.

• A consultant in a Tier 1 country with 12 years’ experience applies directly for IAM Certified Consultant and pays £700, including a year’s membership. If admitted as FInstAM, the subscription is £160 a year thereafter.

• A government ministry in a Tier 2 country enrols 20 staff on an in-house Associate Consultant cohort: 20 × £300, less 15%, is £5,100.

• A consulting firm in a Tier 1 country enrols 12 staff on a closed Certified Consultant Course cohort: 12 × £1,300, less 15%, is £13,260.

7.4 Payment terms

• Individuals pay through the IAM Portal before the course or assessment starts. Organisations are invoiced in pounds sterling, payable within 30 days.

• Instalments are available by agreement, as for other Institute fees. Bank charges and currency conversion costs are borne by the payer.

• Refunds follow the Refund Policy (IAM-REF-2026-001); the 14-day cooling-off period applies to the membership element.

• No fee secures or influences an assessment or award decision, and these fees are added to the published Fees schedule before they are charged.

8. Membership, Good Standing and CPD

The designation and the membership grade are assessed in the same application: the designation under this specification, and the grade under Regulation 3 of the Membership Regulation. Each package or assessment fee includes 12 months’ membership at the grade the evidence supports — typically AInstAM for Associates, and MInstAM, FInstAM, or SFInstAM for Certified Consultants. Existing members receive a 12-month subscription credit instead.

The designation may be used only while membership is current and in Good Standing; use is suspended on lapse and restored on renewal.

From 1 January 2027, every designation holder meets the CPD Regulation, whatever their grade: 30 hours in each CPD Year, at least 15 of them Structured, including 3 hours of ethics and 2 of sustainability, with one reflective practice record. At least 10 of the 30 hours must relate to consultancy practice. Role Mastery courses and the Consultancy Leadership Masterclass count as Structured CPD. The Institute audits a random 10% of CPD declarations each year.

IAM Consultancy Faculty. Designation holders join the Faculty at no extra charge. It provides a find-a-consultant listing in the IAM Directory, referral of client enquiries, proposal, and engagement templates, mentoring through the IAM Mentoring and Professional Supervision Framework, and an annual consultancy forum.

IAM Recognised Consultancy. Firms and public-sector advisory units may apply for Recognised Consultancy status if they employ at least two designation holders, one of them an IAM Certified Consultant, and adopt the Consultancy Practice Addendum to the Code of Ethics. Recognised Consultancies are listed in the IAM Directory and may use the Recognised Consultancy mark.

9. Names, recognition, and regulated qualifications

The programme title and the designations were chosen to be generic, globally applicable and free of conflict with regulated qualifications and with other bodies’ marks.

• Standard notice. Certificates, the website, the IAM Portal and all marketing carry this statement: “IAM Certified Programmes and designations are professional recognitions awarded and internally regulated by the Institute of Administrative Management. They are not regulated qualifications in any jurisdiction — in England, for example, they are not Ofqual-regulated and carry no RQF level — and they confer no licence to practise.”

• Presentation. Both designations are always presented as professional designations awarded by the Institute — for example, “IAM Associate Consultant, a professional designation of the Institute of Administrative Management” — on certificates, in the IAM Directory and in marketing.

• Title words. No programme, course, or designation title uses: qualification, Award, Certificate, Diploma, Level, Master, Degree, Chartered, Registered, Licensed, or Accredited, or their equivalents in other languages and jurisdictions. No level equivalence is claimed.

• Regulated qualifications kept separate. Qualifications regulated by Ofqual or any other national regulator that IAM delivers as an approved centre of Qualifi never share a title, certificate, or marketing material with these designations.

• Other bodies’ marks. The titles avoid CMC® and Certified Management Consultant®, used across the ICMCI network, and Chartered Management Consultant (ChMC), awarded by CMI.

• No new letters. The InstAM post-nominals are unique to the Institute and verifiable through Verify a Member. Letters prefixed “IAM” would be ambiguous: the Institute of Asset Management also trades as IAM and awards an IAM Certificate and IAM Diploma, and IAM is a common abbreviation for identity and access management in IT.

• Translation. In every language edition, “consultant” is rendered with the generic term for a professional adviser, never with a word that is a statutory or professional rank in the target country — such as the engineering and medical grades used in several Arabic-speaking countries. Each translation is checked against this rule before publication.

• No licence to practise. The designations confer no licence to practise where consultancy or advice is regulated, such as engineering, legal, financial, tax, or immigration advice.

10. Governance and quality assurance

• Regulation. The programme is internally regulated by IAM. Its courses are delivered under the IAM Certified Programmes Handbook (IAM-CPH-2026-001) and the Blended Distance Learning Policy (IAM-BDL-2026-001). It has no external accreditation and makes no claim to any.

• Consultancy Assessment Panel. Three members drawn from IAM Certified Consultants at Fellow or Senior Fellow grade and from Senior Fellows, at least one not employed by the Institute. The Panel decides every award, meeting online monthly or deciding by e-vote to keep to the published maximum.

• Assessors. IAM Certified Consultants at Fellow or Senior Fellow grade and Senior Fellows appointed to Institute assessment panels, trained, and standardised twice a year, and required to declare any conflict of interest. During the founding period, senior consultants and academics admitted by peer review may serve as assessors.

• Moderation. Internal quality assurance samples one in five assessed portfolios and recorded professional discussions each quarter and reports findings to the Board annually. Pass marks for both online checks are confirmed by a standard-setting review after the first two intakes.

• Ethics. The Code of Ethics (IAM-COC-2026-001) applies with a Consultancy Practice Addendum covering independence and objectivity, conflicts of interest, transparent fees, confidentiality, and data protection, responsible use of AI, and a prohibition on inducements.

• Appeals and complaints. Handled under the Complaints, Disputes, and Appeals Policy (IAM-CDA-2026-001).

• Records. Course completions are entered in the Register of Programme Completers; awards appear in the IAM Directory and Verify a Member; digital badges are issued through the IAM Badge Platform.

• Protection. Trade mark clearance and registration for “IAM Certified Consultant” and “IAM Associate Consultant” in the United Kingdom and the Institute’s principal markets before launch.

Appendix A — Consultancy Competence Overlay

The overlay applies the IAM Professional Standards to consultancy practice. It is read with the domain descriptors for the candidate’s Career Stage. Each column states the threshold standard for the designation. The syllabuses map every learning outcome to these six competences (C1 to C6).

Appendix B — Case study template

Each case study for IAM Certified Consultant follows the same seven headings, written within the stated word count or presented as a recorded presentation covering the same ground. Client identities may be anonymised.

• Client and context — the organisation, sector, and situation.

• Your role — internal or external, your responsibilities and who you worked with.

• Contracting and scope — what was agreed, the terms of reference and how success was defined.

• Diagnosis and evidence — the methods used and what the evidence showed.

• Recommendations and implementation — what you proposed, how it was implemented and your part in it.

• Results and client response — the outcomes, with the client evidence that supports them.

• Reflection and ethics — what you would do differently and any ethical issues you managed.

  Institute of Administrative Management · Internally regulated by IAM · For Board approval Page of

  Institute of Administrative Management · Internally regulated by IAM · For Board approval Page of