Fellowship or membership of learned societies, academies or professional institutions
These are generally placed in the order learned societies first, then Royal academicians, then professional institutions. There are two schools of thought as to how these should be ordered within each category:
A & C Black's
Titles and Forms of Address states that "As a general rule, letters should be shown in the order of the foundation of the societies, etc." Similarly, for professional institutions: "[T]here is no recognised order for placing qualifications awarded by different bodies, a recipient usually places these letters on headed paper, business cards, etc, in order of importance to his particular profession." There is no clear distinction between a learned society and a professional institute. With regard to Royal Academicians, Debrett's says: "Although Royal Academicians come second in this list, it is not suggested that they yield in precedence to fellows of learned societies. In practice, the two lists do not coincide." Black's notes that where a professional body or society has multiple grades of membership, only the highest is used except in professional correspondence, and that fellowships "election to which is a distinction" (e.g. FRS, RSA, RA, FBA) should be used on all correspondence, whereas initials only indicating support for a society are limited to correspondence on matters of interest to that society. Initials can also be used in professional contexts to indicate expertise. In this table, all societies, institutions, etc. are listed alphabetically by substantive name, rather than attempting to establish an order of precedence. Some post-nominals (and associated professional titles) are protected as "Professions Regulated by Professional Bodies Incorporated by Royal Charter" under the
European professional qualification directives. These are indicated with an asterisk (e.g. CEng*). Memberships and fellowships of the various medical Royal Colleges are listed post-nominally as medical qualifications (see the previous section) rather than with professional bodies and learned societies.
Chartered and other professional statuses Some bodies award
Chartered and other professional statuses with separate designatory letters from those indicating membership. These letters are placed before the designatory letters for fellowship or membership of the awarding body, e.g. CPhys MInstP. Where chartered status is a membership level within an institute, this is shown under that institute's entry above, e.g. Chartered Architectural Technologists, MCIAT, or Chartered Tax Advisor, CTA. ==Membership of the armed forces and civilian services==