There's more about it on the
Chartered Institute of Logistics + Transport website - they are a provider of the course, although as they say on the BBC, other providers are available.
The detail is on a PDF you can download.
One snippet says 'Total Qualification Time: 157 hours, including 72 hours Guided Learning'
I studied for CPC via distance learning (doing it by post - this was before the internet) over 25 years ago now, and it looks like there's rather more to it now than there was then - from memory then there was a single exam (that I did have to go to in person) that was all multiple choice questions.
I am seriously considering doing a refresher course (some places offer 2 day refresher courses, either online or in person.)
In answer to the first question, as has already been said, it's only a requirement if you're going to be a designated transport manager. It may count in your favour but may depend on the sort of job you're going after and the organisation involved. Some of the big groups go more for graduates of any discipline and go through their graduate scheme, and with some of them, getting beyond front line supervisor roles is pretty difficult unless you've gone through the graduate scheme.
If you're already in the business, is it the sort of place where you can discuss development aspirations with managers? (some places are more positive about that sort of thing than others.)
There are other courses that the CILT do, including up to a level that's supposed to be equivalent to a degree, although employers' opinion of them varies. To some people, the CILT doesn't have the status it did when it was just the CIT before it merged to form CILT. Personally, I'm not sure it helps itself by having some post-nominals (letters you can put after your name) that don't mean much more than you've paid your membership - this makes it harder to tell the difference between this and people who have studied for a qualification.
