Transparency in Supply Chains (TISC): Modern Slavery Act Statement
The IET runs its activities with integrity. Modern slavery is a complex and multi-faceted crime and tackling it requires all of us to play a part. The IET is committed to preventing acts of modern slavery and human trafficking from occurring within its business and supply chain and to improving our practices to combat slavery and human trafficking.
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 requires UK organisations with an annual turnover of £36m or more to report on the steps they are taking to ensure that modern slavery is not taking place in its supply chains and publish with a link via the home page on its website. This includes the IET.
The IET
The IET is one of the world’s largest engineering institutions with members all over the world. It is a body incorporated by Royal Charter and is registered with the Charity Commission in England and Wales (Charity no 211014), and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (Charity no SC038698). The IET has two active wholly owned non-charitable trading subsidiary undertakings registered in England and Wales, IET Services Ltd (company registration no 909719), and IET Conventions Limited (company registration no 3566585).
The IET has a number of other subsidiaries as listed below:
- IET Engineering and Technology Consultancy (Beijing) Company Limited - Unified social credit number: 911101056843540445
- The Institution of Engineering and Technology (INSPEC Asia Pacific Representative Office) - 33365035-000-02-24-7 (Certificate No.)
- The Institution of Engineering and Technology, USA
- IET USA, Inc – 0100728916
- IET (Canada) - Corporation number: 822405-6
- IET Services (India) Private Limited - U93000KA2012FTC064117
- IET Section 8 - U80903KA2007NPL044461
- IET Solutions (India) Private Limited - U80902KA2020FTC133624
- WISE Campaign Community Interest C.I.C. - 07533934
The IET’s charitable objects and purposes are as set out in section 3 of its Royal Charter. The IET is working to engineer a better world by inspiring, informing and influencing our members, engineers and technicians and all those impacted by the work of engineers. It does this through various channels including publications, events, conferences, networking and advice. At the end of 2025 the IET has a global community of over 156,000 members.
The IET has offices in the UK, China, Hong Kong, India and the USA. In 2025, it had a global income of approximately £65.1m and in 2025 employed an average of 507 people worldwide. Its activities are supported by over 3,800 engaged volunteers worldwide. The IET recognises the risks of modern slavery are higher in some parts of the world in which it operates membership and other activities and takes these risks very seriously. The IET works with its subsidiaries and international partners to ensure that modern slavery is not present in their operations and activities.
The IET’s Supply Chain
In order to deliver its activities, the IET works with a range of suppliers, including publishing services, software services, catering and facilities management, and professional services.
Our Investments
We require our Investment Advisers and Investment Managers to have an anti-modern slavery policy in place. All our investment managers’ Modern Slavery polices are publicly available. The selection of new investment managers is based on recommendations put forward by our investment adviser (Mercers), as part of their regular review of our investment strategy. Mercer only put forward suitable investment manager candidates that have embedded policies and procedures on such matters.
Policies
The IET has an Anti-Slavery Policy in place for staff and volunteers, and offers guidance on whistleblowing on its website at https://www.theiet.org/membership/professionalism-and-ethics/professional-ethics-resources/whistleblowing-guidance-for-members/ as well as having staff and volunteer Policies on whistleblowing. The IET also has a comprehensive Procurement Policy in place which sets out a procurement framework designed to ensure that modern slavery is not present within the IET’s business.
The IET’s Rules of Conduct for Members embed ethical behaviour across IET’s membership and oblige members to observe the provisions of the Statement of Ethical Principles published by the Engineering Council and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Actions to minimise risk of Slavery
The IET takes a multifaceted approach, which includes:
IET contract templates include standard anti-slavery clauses as appropriate.
WISE Campaign Community Interest (C.I.C. 07533934) which was acquired by the IET in 2024 was integrated into the IET in early 2025.
Futures Place, our main office based in Stevenage remains an area of focus, including for cleaning and catering services. Operatives are on site so any unusual work practises would be visible. Catering and cleaning are also generally consistent, allowing individuals to become known to facilities colleagues over time and relationship developed.
IET Venues – Savoy Place and Austin Court - have contracts running to include maintenance, cleaning and security and catering services. The Venues have competitive tenders every 3 or 5 years for each service. Contractors are required to supply their Anti-Slavery Policies or a statement that they are not in breach of the Modern Slavery Act. Our tender documentation includes a provision for the mandatory exclusion of any bidder convicted of an offence under sections 1, 2 or 4 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. The contracts between the IET Venues and its suppliers has the relevant section and clauses for the Compliance with Anti-Slavery and Human Trafficking Laws.
Technology contracts are split into strategic, operational and commodity as classes of importance. They are reviewed on a regular basis and on their renewal cycle – all our key contracts have modern slavery clauses in them.
All suppliers engaged by the IET are required to adhere to strict modern slavery clauses within their contracts. As part of our due diligence process, we conduct thorough checks during the tender stage, which include overseas office visits where appropriate. Our supply chain includes partners in higher-risk regions such as Poland, Bulgaria, India, and the Philippines, as well as suppliers in the US and UK. Several of these suppliers are part of large international corporations, and the majority have worked with the IET for over eight years, demonstrating stability and trust. Based on these measures—contractual obligations, rigorous due diligence, and long-standing relationships—combined with the absence of any issues in 2025 or previous years, the risk of modern slavery within our supply chain is assessed as low.
Our supply chain includes partners in key locations such as Poland (SmartXML), Bulgaria (Ontotext), India (NEC Software, River Valley Technologies, Molecular Connection, Innodata, MPS, Techset), and the Philippines (Data Gateway and Innodata), as well as suppliers in the US and UK.
Our recruitment practices help prevent the risk of modern slavery within our organisation. Our employment agreements and policies are managed locally, based on global templates and principles but adapted for the relevant local context and applicable law.
Some of the other Human Resources measures which the IET has in place include:
- Conducting vetting checks of prospective recruits before extending an offer of employment/prior to start date (whichever is more appropriate/suitable) and a police (where appropriate) and reference check prior to start date (double-stage process)
- Conducting regular salary reviews to ensure that staff are paid a living wage in the countries it operates in, and benchmarking salaries to ensure that they remain competitive in the sector
- Checking, but not withholding, identity documents and rights to work documentation;
- Providing information on workers’ rights in a language they can understand
- Not allowing fines levied to be passed onto employees, for workers to be charged finders’ fees, and not deducting accommodation or transport costs from staff salaries
- Ensuring Right to Work checks are completed in-line with legal obligations for all UK Employees
- Ensuring recruitment practices and processes are transparent and free from coercion and/or exploitation
- The adoption of a zero-tolerance approach to forced labour, ensuring that our vacancies are filled through free and informed choice
- Extension of our anti-slavery practices all third-party Recruitment Agency vendors
Continuous review and risk mitigation
The IET Anti-Slavery Policy sets out the IET’s principal risk areas. The IET recognises the need to continually assess the risks of slavery or human trafficking. The IET also recognises that there may be gaps in visibility of supply chains and limitations in the tools used to identify risks. Addressing these is a complex task and is under continuous review to develop an effective framework. The IET recognises the need for modern slavery training across the organisation to widen awareness, particularly for those staff members who are involved in managing recruitment and our supply chains. In 2025 we achieved 94% completion of an eLearning training module for all staff. This training is on a two-year cycle for existing staff.
To date, the IET has not found any instances of modern slavery in its operations or supply chain.
Guidance Update
In 2025, the UK Government updated its guidance on modern slavery reporting to strengthen transparency and accountability. The IET will review these changes in detail during 2026 and incorporate them into our approach for the next statement. For 2025, we have maintained the existing structure of our statement while ensuring it reflects actions taken during the year to mitigate modern slavery risks across our operations and supply chains.