UK commercial diving contractors carry one of the heaviest compliance loads in the construction sector — DWR 1997 statute, ACoP L103/L104, ISO 45001/9001/14001, relevant IMCA good-practice expectations, and the annual contractor audit. This is what to ask when evaluating compliance software.
About these references. PICMS is an independent compliance management platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, certified by, or approved by IMCA. References to IMCA publications (D011, D018, D023, D040) are for identification and alignment purposes only. IMCA documents remain the property of IMCA and users should obtain and use official IMCA publications in accordance with IMCA’s applicable terms. PICMS does not reproduce, distribute, or replace IMCA-controlled documents.
References to HSE Approved Codes of Practice (L103, L104) and other HSE publications are factual identification only, made available to UK operators under the Open Government Licence v3.0. PICMS is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or approved by the Health and Safety Executive. Operators must consult the controlled HSE text directly for binding requirements.
Most generic compliance platforms can be made to work for diving with enough configuration effort. Genuinely diving-aware software is rarer. Use these criteria to separate the two.
UK diving equipment inspection regimes (e.g. those in IMCA D018) reference inspection cycles spanning 6-month / 12-month / 15-month / 2-year / 2.5-year / 4-year / 5-year / 10-year intervals per equipment category, typically with a short grace window. A platform that can’t model that natively forces you to track cycles in Excel anyway. PICMS supports configurable cadences across these standard intervals; refer to your applicable inspection publication for the controlled values.
The Diving at Work Regulations 1997 require dive records retained for two years minimum, with specific fields per dive (supervisor, team, max depth, bottom time, decompression table). Generic incident logs don't meet this; a dedicated logbook module does.
The competent-person categorisation referenced in IMCA D018 distinguishes Cat 1 (Supervisor), Cat 2 (Specialist Tech), Cat 3 (Class Society Surveyor), Cat 4 (OEM Test House). Every cert's signing authority must be auditable. A platform that records "John Smith" as the signer without category traceability fails contractor audit on this point.
An effective contractor audit-readiness report covers cert validity, PMS execution, modification register completeness, dive activity records, and CP signoffs. A weighted readiness score across all five — mapped against HSE ACoP L104/L103, DWR 1997 duties, and relevant IMCA good-practice expectations, and properly defaulting empty registers to 0% rather than 100% — saves days of pre-audit prep.
The modification-management reference area in IMCA D018 expects modifications to flag the affected equipment for re-certification. A platform that doesn't supersede the old cert AND auto-create a renewal task allows equipment to slip back into service un-reverified.
Auditors don't want a folder of 200 PDFs and your assurance that "the cert for compressor #3 is in there somewhere". They want evidence attached to compressor #3 directly. Per-item evidence attachments separate the audit-ready platforms from the document libraries.
UK diving splits into inshore/inland (HSE ACoP L104) and offshore oil & gas (L103). Some contractors operate both. A platform that only handles one forces the other half of your fleet into spreadsheets.
When an HSE inspector arrives — planned or unplanned — you have minutes to produce coherent evidence, not hours. A one-click ZIP export of every dive log, cert, RAMS, and attachment with a branded cover sheet is what separates a confident response from a panic-mode hunt through SharePoint.
PICMS Diving Pack was built specifically for UK commercial diving contractors — not retro-fitted from a generic compliance platform. Each of the eight checklist items above is shipped, live, and tested in production.
37 inspection types covering the reference areas in IMCA D018. Standard cadence options (6m / 12m / 15m / 2y / 2.5y / 4y / 5y / 10y) plus configurable grace periods. Threshold-driven expiry events feeding the weekly digest.
Per-dive records with supervisor, team roles, max depth, bottom time, deco table. 2-year retention baked in.
Categories 1-4 (aligned with the categorisation referenced in IMCA D018) enforced on signing. Every cert traceable back to the signer's category.
One-click PDF, weighted score, empty-data defaults to 0 (not 100). Evidence mapped against HSE ACoP L104/L103, DWR 1997 duties, and relevant IMCA good-practice expectations. Sales-ready, audit-ready.
Mod logged → equipment flagged → cert superseded → PMS task auto-created. No manual chase.
Plant, certs, CPs, PMS, dive logs all support direct evidence attachment with chain-of-custody.
Both inshore and offshore covered. Industry-pack-aware feature gating per project type.
One-click ZIP — dive logs, certs, RAMS, attachments, branded cover. ~30 second generation.
14-day free trial on both tiers. No credit-card surprise — cancel any time during trial.
Full Diving Pack landing page → · All PICMS pricing →
PICMS is built by an IRCA® Registered Principal Auditor — someone who's stood across the desk from HSE inspectors and contractor auditors working to IMCA D011 reference areas more times than they can count. The diving pack reflects that: it's not "generic compliance software with a diving skin," it's a dedicated product surface designed around the actual evidence your auditor will ask for.
14 days free, full feature access. Less than £10/day on the Professional tier — pays for itself the first time HSE turns up unannounced.