There is a widely held belief among self-employed tradespeople that health and safety law was relaxed for them a decade ago. It was — for around 1.7 million people. Construction was deliberately left out.
If you are self-employed and working on a construction site, every duty applies to you in full, and CDM 2015 adds several more that catch sole traders out entirely. This page sets out what you are actually responsible for.
The exemption does not apply to construction. From 1 October 2015, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (General Duties of Self-Employed Persons) (Prescribed Undertakings) Regulations exempted self-employed people whose work poses no risk to others from section 3(2) of the Act.
Prescribed activities stay in scope regardless. Those include any work carried out on a construction site, work as a duty holder under CDM 2015, and any work with asbestos — alongside agriculture, gas work under the Gas Safety Regulations, railways and genetically modified organisms. Construction was never going to be exempt, and it is not.
What you are responsible for
Four things, in practice, and none of them go away because you work alone.
Your own health
Nobody else is monitoring your dust exposure, your vibration hours or your hearing. Self-employment is a large part of why occupational disease is under-recognised in construction — there is no employer arranging health surveillance, so damage goes unnoticed until it is permanent.
Everyone else on site
Section 3 is about people who are not your employees — other trades, the client, and members of the public. On a domestic job that means the householder, their children and the neighbours. It is the duty most often prosecuted.
Risk assessment
You need to assess the risks of what you do and record the significant findings. A one-page assessment per job type, reviewed when circumstances change, satisfies this. How to conduct a risk assessment covers the method.
Coordination with others
Where several trades share a site, everyone has a duty to cooperate and coordinate. Your hot works affect the joiner; their dust affects you. Turning up and getting on with it in isolation is not compliance.
The CDM trap for sole traders
CDM 2015 applies to every construction project, including domestic ones. There is no minimum size or value. Self-employed people are contractors under the Regulations, with duties to plan, manage and monitor their own work.
The part that surprises people: on a domestic client’s project, the client’s duties do not simply disappear — they normally pass to a contractor. If you are the only contractor on the job, they pass to you. You end up carrying client duties as well as contractor duties, for a householder who has probably never heard of CDM.
Where more than one contractor is involved, a principal designer and principal contractor must be appointed in writing. Sole traders frequently find themselves in that principal contractor role on small domestic jobs without realising it.
Worth knowing before you quote. If you are pricing a domestic extension as the only contractor, you are pricing the client duties too — the construction phase plan, the welfare arrangements, the coordination. CDM training is a modest investment against getting that wrong on a job you have already priced.
Never take work you cannot do safely
When you are self-employed and cash flow is tight, every enquiry looks like an opportunity. But the two questions worth asking before accepting are: do I have the skills and equipment to do this safely, and do I have the competence the job actually requires?
Falls from height account for over half of construction deaths, and improper use of equipment for a large share of the rest. Both are strongly associated with people doing work slightly outside what they are set up for — borrowed access equipment, an unfamiliar tool, a roof that looked straightforward from the ground. Turning work down is cheaper than the alternative, and considerably cheaper than an uninsured claim.
What principal contractors will ask you for
Beyond the legal duties, there is the commercial reality: no evidence, no gate access. Expect to be asked for some or all of:
- A CSCS card appropriate to your trade and level
- Training certificates for the specific hazards your work involves — asbestos awareness, working at height, abrasive wheels, confined spaces, whatever applies
- Risk assessments and method statements for the work you are doing
- Public liability insurance, and employers’ liability if you engage anyone
- Face fit test records where you wear tight-fitting RPE
- Equipment inspection and calibration records for anything requiring them
Having these organised before you need them is the difference between starting Monday and losing the job.
Training worth having
For a sole trader, training is both a compliance requirement and a commercial asset — it is what gets you onto sites that turn other people away.
- Start with CITB Health and Safety Awareness — one day, and the usual route to a CSCS card for those without a formal qualification.
- Add the hazards you actually meet — asbestos awareness if you touch any pre-2000 building, working at height, silica dust.
- If you supervise others — SSSTS, or SMSTS if you run sites.
- If health and safety is becoming part of what you sell — the NEBOSH Construction Certificate is the recognised qualification, and it differentiates a sole trader considerably when bidding.
Training for self-employed trades
Awareness courses through to NEBOSH, with dates and venues across the UK — and online options that fit around a working week.
Common questions
I’m self-employed with no employees. Am I exempt?
Not if you work on construction sites. The 2015 exemption covers self-employed people whose work poses no risk to others, and specifically excludes construction, asbestos work, CDM duty holder activity, agriculture, gas work, railways and genetically modified organisms. There is also a catch-all: even outside those categories, if your work could pose a risk to anyone else, the duty applies.
Do I need written risk assessments?
The requirement to record significant findings applies to employers with five or more employees, so as a sole trader you may not be strictly obliged to write them down. In practice you should — principal contractors will ask for them, and an unwritten assessment is impossible to evidence after an incident. A page per job type is enough.
Does CDM apply to a domestic extension?
Yes. CDM 2015 applies to all construction projects with no minimum threshold, domestic included. The domestic client’s duties normally transfer to the contractor — and if you are the only contractor, they transfer to you. That is worth understanding before you price the job.
Do I need employers’ liability insurance?
Only if you employ anyone, including on a casual or labour-only basis — and the definition catches more arrangements than people expect. Public liability is not a legal requirement but is effectively unavoidable commercially, since almost no client or principal contractor will engage you without it.
Who arranges my health surveillance?
Nobody, unless you do. This is the real gap in self-employment. Where an employee exposed to silica, vibration or noise would receive lung function testing, HAVS assessment and audiometry, a sole trader typically receives none. Arranging it privately is worth considering if you have years of exposure behind you — early detection is the only point at which any of these conditions can still be limited.
Related training
Getting started
Hazard-specific
Supervisory and professional
This page is general guidance, not legal advice — confirm your own duties with HSE or a competent adviser.