How many CPD hours does the GDC require, and how much should be radiography?

The General Dental Council recommends at least five hours of radiography and radiation protection CPD in each five-year cycle if you undertake radiography. It is highly recommended, and the GDC's recommended topics are not compulsory. The required minimum is verifiable CPD per cycle: 100 hours for dentists, 75 or 50 for other titles. IR(ME)R sets a separate legal training duty.

How many CPD hours does each GDC registrant need in a cycle, by role?

The GDC sets CPD as a total for a cycle, and your cycle is always five years long. The CPD year runs 1 January to 31 December for dentists and 1 August to 31 July for dental care professionals.

The minimum depends on your registrant title. The GDC's CPD Rules set the figures in law, and the current guidance repeats them. The last column is the GDC's recommendation for radiography, which the next section covers.

Three rules shape how you reach that figure:

• Every hour you declare to the GDC must be verifiable. You can still do non-verifiable CPD, and you don't declare it.
• You need at least 10 hours in every two consecutive CPD years, including the two years that span the end of one cycle and the start of the next.
• If you hold more than one title, you meet the highest figure among them.

Temporary registrants on the dentists register do at least 20 hours of CPD in each CPD year.

So the requirement is a cycle total. A figure per year is yours to plan, inside the floor of 10 hours across every two consecutive years.

CPD is a compulsory part of GDC registration. Missing the minimum can lead to removal from the register, and a registrant who is removed cannot practise dentistry in the UK.

Is radiography and radiation protection required or highly recommended, and how many hours does the GDC suggest?

It is highly recommended. The GDC names three highly recommended topics, and radiography and radiation protection is one of them. Its recommended topics page says: "if you undertake radiography, we recommend at least five hours in each cycle." For dental technicians the GDC recommends materials and equipment in its place, again at least five hours in each cycle.

The GDC's guidance says these topics are not compulsory. It asks you to think about what is relevant to your field of practice, and about "other regulations or qualifications that require you to meet certain CPD requirements regularly". IR(ME)R sets its own continuing education duty for practitioners and operators, and the last section covers it.

The other two highly recommended topics are medical emergencies, at least 10 hours per cycle with at least two hours every year, and disinfection and decontamination, at least five hours per cycle. The GDC also recommends CPD in legal and ethical issues, complaints handling, early detection of oral cancer, safeguarding children and young people, and safeguarding vulnerable adults.

The guidance points to the recommended topics page for the live list. That page carries two qualifiers: "if you undertake radiography" and "at least".

The five-hour figure is older than the current scheme, which came into effect in 2018. The GDC's earlier scheme document also recommended at least five hours of radiography and radiation protection in every cycle. The earlier scheme asked dentists for 250 hours every five years, 75 of them verifiable, and dental care professionals for 150 hours, 50 of them verifiable.

No GDC consultation on CPD was open on 23 September 2026. The GDC's strategy for 2026-2028 plans to design a future CPD model in 2027 and to develop a new CPD scheme in 2028–2030, following legislative change.

What makes CPD verifiable under the GDC's scheme?

CPD is verifiable when you have recorded the activity in your activity log and you hold evidence from the provider that covers seven things. The evidence is a certificate, or a mapping document or email from the provider. It states:

1. the subject, learning content, aims and objectives
2. the anticipated GDC development outcomes
3. the date or dates of the CPD
4. the total number of hours
5. your name, as the professional who took part
6. that the CPD is quality assured, with the name of the person or body who assures it
7. the provider's confirmation that the information is full and accurate.

Each planned and completed activity must link to at least one of the GDC's four development outcomes, A to D. The guidance lists radiography as example content under outcome C, maintenance and development of knowledge and skill within your field of practice.

The CPD Rules set the same evidence conditions in law. An hour counts towards your minimum only if the provider's evidence carries them, and the CPD delivered a learning outcome identified in your CPD record.

The GDC does not provide CPD and does not approve CPD providers. Choosing CPD that meets these requirements is your responsibility, and so is getting the evidence from the provider.

Keep your CPD record for five years after the end of the cycle it belongs to.

How does the GDC's CPD recommendation relate to IR(ME)R training?

They are two separate obligations. The five hours are your regulator's recommendation. IR(ME)R is law, and it sets its own training duty.

The Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2017 cover England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland has the Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2018, with the same bar on untrained exposures and the same continuing education duty. GDC CPD is a condition of registration to practise dentistry in the UK.

Under IR(ME)R 2017, a practitioner or operator must not carry out any exposure, or any practical aspect of one, without adequate training. The practitioner is the registered health care professional entitled under the employer's procedures to take responsibility for justifying an individual exposure. The operator is anyone entitled to carry out practical aspects. Adequate training means training in the Schedule 3 subjects relevant to your role, with theoretical knowledge and practical experience.

The employer must take steps to ensure that every practitioner and operator undertakes continuing education and training after qualification. That includes training for new techniques and their radiation protection requirements. DHSC's guidance reads this as a duty to make sure the training happens. Where the employer is also the practitioner or operator, the employer must ensure it is undertaken. The employer keeps an up-to-date record of each practitioner's and operator's training, with its dates and nature, available for inspection.

IR(ME)R 2017 sets no number of hours for this training. It measures training by subject, against the Schedule 3 subjects relevant to your role. None of the sources on this page says the GDC's five hours meet the IR(ME)R duty on their own.

The Guidance Notes for Dental Practitioners on the Safe Use of X-ray Equipment bring the two together. They say the training of dentists and dental care professionals should comply with the GDC's recommendations in addition to the requirements of IR(ME)R. They restate the recommendation of at least five hours of verifiable CPD in radiography and radiation protection in each five-year cycle for those who carry out radiography. If you work with dental CBCT, they suggest that as a minimum about one of the recommended five hours be specific to CBCT.

For the radiation protection content of that CPD, the Guidance Notes recommend these subjects: the principles of radiation physics, the risks of ionising radiation, radiation doses in dental radiography, the factors affecting those doses, the principles of radiation protection, statutory requirements, selection criteria (for IR(ME)R practitioners) and quality assurance.

The sources on this page were checked on 23 September 2026.

The two-minute reading test shows what you catch on a radiograph, what you miss, and what to work on first.