Lead Auditor

Lead Auditors gain access to the IRCA member benefits including our resource, networking and development platforms. Benefits of the Lead Auditor grade include:

• Professional Recognition: Our IRCA Lead Auditors will have their name added to the IRCA register and receive the IRCA digital card and logo which will add further recognition to them in the auditing field.
• Networking: We have thousands of members across our memberships and becoming a Lead Auditor will allow you to interact with our network through our 29 branches, 11 Special Interest Groups and our exclusive LinkedIn group.
• Resources: Our content materials including our Quality World articles and webinars online, in-depth ISO reports, and access to our E-library.
• Development tools: Our development tools including our CPD tool, mentoring platform, Profession map, Quality Careers hub, and Quality Learning hub.

For a more in-depth view of our benefits, please see our benefits page here.

These benefits will encourage and assist you to enhance your career and recognise you as an experienced Lead Auditor.

Learning

You must have passed:

• An IRCA Certified Auditor/Lead Auditor course

or

• A relevant IRCA Certified Auditor/Lead Auditor conversion course (if you are an Auditor/Lead Auditor in another scheme). 

Auditing experience

You must have successfully completed a minimum of four management system audits which:

• Cover all elements of the audit cycle
• Amount to a minimum of 20 days
• Include a minimum of 15 days on site. 

In addition, you must have also:

• Conducted three full management system audits as leader of an audit team,
• That are a minimum of 15 days in total
• With a minimum of 10 days on site. 

This means you must have a total of 7 audits of 35 days with 25 days onsite, at least 3 of which you must have led a team of at least you and one other person.

Remote audits will be accepted. Please list the onsite time as the time you spent conducting the audit via remote auditing methods.

Audits must have been performed: 

• After passing an IRCA Certified Training Course 
• Within 5 years of date of application 

Work experience

Some IRCA schemes have additional work experience requirements.

Information on these additional requirements can be found here.

The IRCA has 14 certification schemes covering a range of ISO standards including ISO9001, ISO45001 and ISO13485.

For a full list of certification schemes please click here.

You must have taken an IRCA-approved auditing course in the standard/s of the scheme/s you are applying for.

Alternative grades

If you do not meet the auditing requirements for this grade but you have completed the relevant training, did you know you can join us as an Auditor or Associate Auditor?

Associate Auditors do not require any auditing experience and can access many of the same member benefits including their name on the IRCA register and you will be able to regrade once you have conducted the required number of audits.

If you have been conducting audits but not leading an auditing team, please take a look at the requirements for Auditor.

Regrading

You may regrade at anytime during your membership to an alternative IRCA grade. You will not need to pay an additional membership fee to regrade however a small regrade fee is due to process your application.

Fees

For all new membership applications, there are two fees to pay; a one-off application fee to process your application and an annual membership fee. The annual membership fee for IRCA covers a 12 month period (1 year). A membership fee will be due for each scheme you are registered on. For a link to the fees, please click here.