Construction Risk Assessment Template: What Accreditation Assessors Want to See
Quick answer: A construction risk assessment template needs five columns at minimum — hazard, who might be harmed and how, existing control measures, risk rating, and further action needed — plus a header recording the activity, location, assessor, and review date. Generic templates fail accreditation because they are not specific to your actual work. Assessors at CHAS, SafeContractor, and Common Assessment Standard bodies are checking whether the assessment reflects how your people do your jobs, not whether you downloaded a tidy form.
Risk assessments are the single most-scrutinised piece of evidence in any construction accreditation. A health and safety policy can be a statement of intent; a risk assessment has to prove you actually understand and control the hazards in your work. This guide gives you a usable template structure, explains what assessors look for, and shows where contractors most often lose marks.
Disclaimer: This guidance is based on HSE published guidance and common industry practice. It is general information, not health and safety advice for a specific site or activity. You are responsible for ensuring your risk assessments are suitable and sufficient for your actual work. TenderReady is not affiliated with the HSE or any accreditation scheme.
The Legal Basis (and Why It Matters for Accreditation)
The duty to assess risk is not optional. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require every employer to carry out a "suitable and sufficient" assessment of the risks to employees and anyone else affected by the work. For construction, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) add duties around planning and managing those risks — covered in our CDM 2015 duties guide.
"Suitable and sufficient" is the phrase accreditation assessors apply. It does not mean exhaustive — the HSE is explicit that you do not need to document every trivial risk — but it does mean your assessment must identify the significant hazards in your specific trade and show real, proportionate controls.
The Template Structure
A construction risk assessment that passes accreditation has two parts: a header and a hazard table.
Header
- Activity / task assessed — be specific ("first-fix carpentry, second floor" beats "carpentry work")
- Site / location
- Assessor name and competence — who carried it out and why they are qualified to
- Date completed and review date
- Persons at risk — employees, subcontractors, other trades, members of the public
Hazard table
| Column | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Hazard | The thing with potential to cause harm (working at height, dust, manual handling, electricity) |
| Who might be harmed and how | The specific people and the specific injury (operative falling from scaffold; passer-by struck by falling material) |
| Existing controls | What you already do to control it (edge protection, RPE, trained operatives, exclusion zone) |
| Risk rating | Likelihood × severity, after existing controls — a simple low/medium/high or a 1–25 matrix |
| Further action | What more is needed, who owns it, and by when |
The "further action" column is where most templates fall down. An assessment with no further actions on anything reads as a tick-box exercise. A credible assessment shows at least some residual actions with named owners and dates — that is the evidence of active management assessors want.
What Assessors Actually Check
From the published criteria of the major schemes and the Common Assessment Standard, assessors look for:
- Specificity to your work. A roofing contractor's risk assessment that does not mention working at height or fragile surfaces is an immediate red flag. Generic, downloaded assessments that could belong to any firm fail.
- Significant hazards covered. Not every conceivable risk — the significant ones for your trade. Missing an obvious major hazard (no manual handling assessment for a groundworks firm) fails.
- Realistic controls. Controls that exist on paper but not on site. Assessors cross-check against your method statements and training records.
- Evidence of review. A risk assessment dated three years ago with no review is stale. Show a review cycle and updates after incidents or changes in work.
- The link to RAMS. Risk assessments pair with method statements to form RAMS (Risk Assessment and Method Statement). See our method statement guide for the other half.
Common Mistakes That Lose Marks
- Copy-paste generic templates with no edits to reflect your actual trade.
- No risk rating after controls — only rating the raw hazard, not the residual risk.
- No named persons at risk beyond "employees".
- Controls listed that you cannot evidence — if you claim "all operatives trained", the assessor will ask for training records.
- No review date, or a review date already in the past.
How to Build Yours
The fastest credible route for an SME is to start from the five-column structure above, then work through your actual jobs one at a time, writing what you genuinely do. If you are preparing a full RAMS pack for accreditation, our method statement guide covers the companion document, and our health and safety policy guide covers the policy that sits above both.
For the full picture of what documentation each scheme requires beyond risk assessments, see Construction Accreditation Requirements.
Sources and References
- Risk assessment — HSE
- Construction health and safety — HSE
- Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 — legislation.gov.uk
- Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 — legislation.gov.uk
Disclaimer: This article provides general guidance based on HSE published material and common industry practice. It does not constitute health and safety advice for any specific site or activity. Always ensure your risk assessments are suitable and sufficient for your actual work and reviewed regularly. TenderReady is not affiliated with the HSE, SSIP, or any accreditation scheme.