The Institute's new website

Fifty years after the Institute was founded, its website has been rebuilt from the ground up. It is at the same address, ide.org.uk, every old link still works, and everything the previous site held is still here. What has changed is what it can do for you, and for the people who need to check you.

If you appoint demolition engineers

The most useful new page is Find an engineer. Type a name or a membership number and the register tells you, in a few seconds, whether that person holds the grade they say they hold and is in good standing with the Institute today. Nothing to log in to, nothing to ask us. A client, a principal designer or an HSE inspector can now do what used to take a phone call to the office.

That matters because the letters after a name are only worth something if they can be checked. The register is the check.

If you are thinking of joining

The seven grades are laid out side by side with what each one requires, what it costs and what it entitles you to. If you are not sure which grade fits, a short eligibility check will point you to the right route, and the application starts from the same page. Examinations, the CSCS PQP card and the professional interview each have a page that says plainly what happens and when.

If you have a question

In the bottom corner of every page there is Ask IDE. Ask it what the Institute expects for CPD, how the Associate interview works, or what a Section 80 notice is, and it answers from the Institute's own published pages and shows you which page it used. It will not assess your project or approve a method, and it says so. It is there to save you a search.

If you are a member

Alongside the website is a members' area. It holds your record, your CPD log, a digital membership card for your phone, event booking with check-in, the members' directory and the Institute's technical papers. The papers can be searched by IDE AI, which answers from the approved library and cites the paper and page it drew on.

Invitations go out by email in the week after the 50th Anniversary Gala and AGM on 19 September. There is nothing to do until yours arrives. Attendance at Institute events is now recorded from the register on the night, so your CPD is credited without a form.

What we would like from you

Use it, and tell us what is wrong. If a page is hard to find, a fact is out of date or a link does not go where it should, write to info@ide.org.uk. The site was built to be changed, and the office can change most of it the same day.

Fifty years is a long time to have been setting a standard. The website now shows it.