The present work is focused on numerical modelling of the strain rate dependent interlaminar damage initiation and propagation in fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials. In the out-of-plane impact events on the FRP plates, delamination, i.e., interlaminar damage is amongst the most significant failure modes that could lead to total failure of the composite structure. Hence, in the everlasting motivation to reduce composite structures’ development time and cost by performing high fidelity numerical simulations comprehensively describing the behaviour of FRP composite structures in all loading conditions and scenarios, it is necessary to accurately capture the delamination phenomena. Furthermore, such events frequently result in elevated strain rate conditions. As it has been shown in the literature, FRP composites, along with their interlaminar interfaces, exhibit strain rate dependence. Thus, in this work, strain rate effects on interlaminar strength and fracture toughness are introduced, resulting in a strain rate dependent interlaminar damage initiation and propagation model. The numerical model is developed as a VUMAT user-defined material model subroutine implemented in commercial finite element software Abaqus/Explicit. It is utilized with the Abaqus built-in zero thickness cohesive elements. Results are verified with the Abaqus built-in cohesive traction separation material model and are validated against the Double Cantilever Beam (DCB) experiments performed in the available literature. The results obtained using the developed material model are showing satisfactory correlation when compared to the established Abaqus built-in model and experimental results.