Code of professional conduct

All members, including Students, agree to follow the SFTI Code of Professional Conduct. The current version came into force on 1 January 2025.

The ten principles

Act with integrity; only accept work you're competent to do; keep information confidential; be impartial; declare conflicts of interest; be honest about your qualifications; respect colleagues; keep your skills up to date; deal fairly with clients; and comply with the law.

Breaking the code

Complaints that a member has broken the code are considered by the Professional Conduct Committee.

Download: Code of Professional Conduct (PDF, 7 KB)

Good to know

• We publish anonymised summaries of complaint decisions twice a year to help members learn from them.
• Keep written records of instructions and agreements with clients; they matter if anything goes wrong.
• The code applies to everything you do as a translator or interpreter, including unpaid work.

Downloads

• Code of Professional Conduct (PDF, 7 KB)
• Guidance on machine translation and AI (PDF, 160 KB)

Page last reviewed 13 March 2026