Risk Assessment Software for Construction

Risk assessment in construction: phase plans, work at height and changing sites

Construction risk assessment happens at three levels at once: the project's construction phase plan, each contractor's assessment of its own work, and the task-level check before a crew starts, such as a lift, an excavation or work at height. The law expects all three. Before the site is set up, the principal contractor draws up a plan setting out arrangements and site rules; each employer assesses the risks of its work; and work at height must be properly planned, supervised and carried out safely, including planning for rescue.

What makes construction hard is change. The same assessment is wrong a week later when the scaffold goes up or the weather turns. A tool is useful here when it makes review easy after a significant change and keeps the earlier version, so the reason for a new control is traceable.

Some hazards have to be assessed before work starts, not as it goes. In Great Britain, demolition or maintenance work liable to expose people to asbestos may not start until the employer has assessed whether asbestos is present, what type, in which material and in what condition, or presumes that it is. In US construction, a competent person identifies every confined space employees may work in, and which are permit spaces, before work begins at the worksite. The construction phase plan must hold specific measures for the particular-risk categories in Schedule 3, such as burial under earthfalls, work near high-voltage power lines, explosives or assembling and dismantling heavy prefabricated components, and it must be reviewed and revised as the project moves on.

Risks also cross between trades. Each contractor must pass to its workers the risks arising from another contractor's work that it ought reasonably to know about, so an assessment written by the groundworks contractor may need to reach the steel erector's crew.

Rules that shape this evaluation

• CDM 2015, regulation 12 (Great Britain): before a construction site is set up, the principal contractor draws up a construction phase plan setting out health and safety arrangements and site rules.
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 3: every employer makes a suitable and sufficient risk assessment and reviews it when it may no longer be valid or when there has been a significant change.
• Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 4: work at height is properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out safely, with planning that includes emergencies and rescue and account of the weather.
• Directive 92/57/EEC, Article 5(b) (EU): the project-preparation coordinator draws up a safety and health plan with specific measures for high-risk work categories listed in Annex II.
• CDM 2015, Schedule 3 with regulation 12(2) and (4): the construction phase plan includes specific measures for particular-risk work such as earthfalls, high-voltage power lines, explosives and heavy prefabricated components, and is reviewed, updated and revised throughout the project.
• Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, regulation 5 (Great Britain): demolition, maintenance or other work liable to expose employees to asbestos does not start until the employer has assessed whether asbestos is present, its type, material and condition, or presumes it is present.
• 29 CFR 1926.1203(a), US OSHA confined spaces in construction: before work begins at a worksite, a competent person identifies the confined spaces employees may work in and which of them are permit spaces, testing as necessary.
• CDM 2015, regulation 15(9)(c): workers receive information on risks identified by the risk assessment and on risks arising from another contractor's work of which their contractor ought reasonably to be aware.

Summarised from the linked official texts, read on 25 September 2026. This is buyer context, not legal advice: have the responsible specialists confirm which requirements apply to your sites.

Questions to settle for this combination

1. Can a task assessment be revised after a site change while keeping the earlier version and the reason for the change?
2. Can each subcontractor's assessment be reviewed and accepted by the principal contractor in the same tool?
3. Does a work-at-height assessment include a rescue plan field, not just controls for the fall?
4. Can a crew acknowledge the assessment on site, on a phone, before starting?
5. Can assessments be linked to the construction phase plan so a change in one flags the other?

What the records should show

• The asbestos assessment or presumption for each area before demolition or maintenance, with its date and author.
• The confined spaces and permit spaces identified before work began, signed by the competent person.
• Which Schedule 3 categories apply to the project and the plan section that addresses each one.
• Each revision of the phase plan and the task assessments it affected.
• Which other contractors' risks were passed to each crew, and when.

Which documented capabilities matter most here

Signals in the researched records of the listed products:

• Matched through a sourced tag or a documented capability rather than the primary category: Effivity, Emex, SoterAI and SoterCoach, Certainty Software, Evotix, Quentic, TuMeke Ergonomics and VelocityEHS.
• On this list for another reason, such as an industry tag, with no sourced match to the category: SafeContractor.
• Offline use, as classified in the records: a documented offline workflow: Emex, Evotix, Quentic and VelocityEHS; a partial offline workflow: Certainty Software. No classification yet for 4 of the 9.
• A published price amount is on record for Effivity, Emex, SoterAI and SoterCoach, Certainty Software and SafeContractor; the other 4 need a quote.
• A free trial is documented for Effivity, SoterAI and SoterCoach and TuMeke Ergonomics.

Vendor-material signals, not test results; the commercial partner is not counted; no signal means not established.

A demo script for this combination

Ask each vendor to run these steps with synthetic data. They are demo requests, not observed vendor results.

1. Write a synthetic assessment for installing a scaffold, including a rescue plan.
2. Change it after a weather warning and confirm the earlier version and reason are kept.
3. Have a subcontractor submit its own assessment and the principal contractor accept it with a comment.
4. Have the crew acknowledge the revised version on a phone before starting.
5. Presume asbestos in a synthetic refurbishment area and show the assessment gate before a maintenance task can start.
6. Add a confined space found mid-project and show it flagged to the competent person and in the phase plan.