Your profile and settings

My Profile (opens in a new tab) is the read view: who you are, where your membership stands, and what needs doing next. Settings (opens in a new tab) is where you change things. Profile links into the right settings page for whatever you are looking at, so you rarely have to hunt.

The information here is not decoration. Education, work experience and referees are the substance of your membership application, and a reviewer reads exactly what you enter.

Your membership category is on Settings → Profile (opens in a new tab). Choosing a different one does not change it: it opens a short form asking why, and sends the request to NIWEto review. Editing anything else on the page — your address, your bio — never proposes a category change on its own.

Whatever the reason, three things hold:

• You keep the category you hold, and its certificate, until the request is approved. Approval is the moment it changes.
• Your membership number does not change.
• You need to be paid up to ask. If you owe dues, settle them first — the new category’s fees are worked out from when your current cover ends, and there is nothing to work from otherwise.

Two kinds of request, and NIWE decides which yours is. If you have become eligible for a higher category, you are billed at the new rate from when your current cover ends. If you simply applied under the wrong category, nothing is charged and the cover you already paid for carries over.

You never have to wait for one thing before asking about another. Everything you change travels as a single request: if you have already asked to move category and then correct your education history, both go to NIWE together and are approved together. There is only ever one request outstanding, and it always carries your latest version of everything.

While a request is waiting you will see a note at the top of Settings → Profile (opens in a new tab) saying which category you asked for and which you still hold. It carries a Withdraw this request button if you change your mind — you do not need an administrator to undo it.

Before your application has been approved there is nothing to request: change the category on your application and resubmit.

Each page saves what it shows you, and nothing else. Saving Profile (opens in a new tab) never touches your referees; saving Education (opens in a new tab) never touches your work history. Asking to move category touches none of them.

When NIWEis reviewing a change, what they see is your full record with your edits applied — not just the page you were on — and only the parts that actually differ are highlighted for them. So you can change one detail without re-entering everything else, and without anyone having to guess what the rest of your record used to say.

Removing something is still removing it. If you delete every referee on the Referees page and save, they are gone, and they stay gone.

Settings → Profile holds your name, contact details, date of birth, photo, and the membership choices on your application: membership type and any local group, subdivision, or specialty fieldsNIWE uses.

Any custom identifiers NIWE requires — a licence or council registration number, for instance — are on this page too. If NIWE stops collecting one, it disappears from the form but whatever you entered is kept: nothing you have already given is thrown away because the question was withdrawn.

NIWE publishes a register so that an employer, a tender board or a regulator can confirm a membership claim without having to write in and ask. Settings → Profile has a Public directory choice with three settings, and you can change it whenever you like.

• Full profile — your photo, biography and specialty appear alongside your membership details.
• Verification details only — the default. Your name, membership number, grade and chapter only, which are the facts already printed on your certificate.
• Do not list me — you are removed from the directory listing and from its search, so nobody browsing the register finds you.

Choosing Do not list me also keeps you out of the birthday celebrations on the member wall. Your email address, phone number and date of birth are never published in the directory at any of the three settings.

Settings → Education and Settings → Work experience hold as many entries as you need. Add, edit and remove them freely while your application is a draft.

Keep them current after approval as well. Some organizations use work history for chapter placement or for upgrading you to a higher membership grade later.

Settings → References covers referees, next of kin, any supporting notes — and the submit application action.

Referees should be people who can speak to your professional standing. Give a working email and phone number for each: some organizations contact them directly, and an unreachable referee stalls a review.

Settings → Appearance holds the preferences that change how the portal looks to you rather than what it knows about you, including light and dark mode. It is per-account, so a change here does not affect anybody else.

Settings → Notifications is next to it, and is where you choose which channels reach you and verify a phone number for SMS or WhatsApp. See Notifications.

Settings → Change password asks for your current password and a new one. Changing it does not sign you out elsewhere, so if you are changing it because you suspect someone else has it, sign out of any device you do not recognise afterwards.

Notification channels live under Settings → Notifications. See Notifications.

Settings → Delete account removes your account permanently. It is not a pause and not a resignation from the organization: if you have paid membership, deleting your account does not refund it, and if you want to rejoin later you start over.