“Is this training a legal requirement?” and “how often do we have to refresh it?” are the two questions employers ask most often, and the answers are less obvious than they look. Very few UK health and safety regulations name a specific course, and fewer still set a refresher interval.
What the law generally requires is that people are competent for the work they do, and that you can demonstrate it. This page sets out where the training duties actually come from, which topics carry specific requirements, and where the common refresher intervals come from when the law is silent.
The two duties everything else sits under. Section 2(2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to provide such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure health and safety. Regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 then requires training on recruitment, and again on exposure to new or increased risks — repeated periodically where appropriate.
“Where appropriate” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It is your risk assessment, not a regulation, that decides how often.
Where specific training duties come from
Several regulations impose their own training requirements on top of the general duties. None of them names a course, and only a few imply an interval.
| Topic | Where the duty comes from | Refresher interval |
|---|---|---|
| First aid | Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 | Certificates last 3 years; HSE strongly recommends annual refresher in between |
| Fire safety | Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (England & Wales); Fire (Scotland) Act 2005 | No statutory interval; 1–3 years is common practice for marshals |
| Asbestos | Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, regulation 10 | HSE advises annual refresher for licensed and non-licensed work; no fixed rule for awareness |
| Hazardous substances | COSHH Regulations 2002, regulation 12 | None set; 2–3 years is common policy |
| Working at height | Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 5 (competence) | None set; equipment card schemes carry their own validity |
| Manual handling | Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992, with MHSWR regulation 13 | None set; 3 years is the usual convention |
| Display screen equipment | Health and Safety (DSE) Regulations 1992, regulation 6 | None set; review when the workstation, equipment or user changes |
| Work equipment | PUWER 1998, regulation 9 | None set; retrain on new equipment or after an incident |
| Noise | Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, regulation 10 | None set; triggered where exposure reaches the action levels |
| Confined spaces | Confined Spaces Regulations 1997 — safe system of work by competent people | None set; 3 years is common, and clients often specify |
| Electrical safety | Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, regulation 16 (competence) | None set; competence must be current for the work undertaken |
Two different things get called “required”. The law requires competence. Card and certificate schemes — CSCS, SWQR, Site Safety Plus, IPAF, PASMA — set their own validity periods, commonly three or five years, and those are contractual rather than statutory.
Both matter, but for different reasons. Missing the legal duty risks enforcement. Missing a card expiry means being turned away at the gate.
When to retrain, regardless of the interval
Regulation 13 requires training when someone is exposed to new or increased risk. In practice that means retraining is triggered by events rather than dates:
- New starters, including agency and temporary staff, before they start the task
- A change of role, even within the same organisation
- New equipment, substances or processes
- After an incident or near miss that exposed a gap
- When a risk assessment is revised and the controls change
- Where monitoring shows controls are not being used properly — the most commonly ignored trigger, and often the most telling
A three-year cycle that ignores all six is a calendar, not a training plan.
Building a training matrix
The practical answer to all of this is a simple matrix: roles down one side, training topics across the top, with dates completed and dates due. It takes an afternoon to build and it answers most of what an inspector, insurer or client will ask.
Three things make one work rather than gather dust:
- Drive it from the risk assessment, not from a list of courses. If a hazard is assessed, someone needs to be trained on the controls.
- Diarise expiries months ahead. Certificates that cannot be renewed once lapsed — first aid at work, street works, plant cards — get considerably more expensive when missed.
- Cover the gaps. One trained person is not coverage. Holidays, sickness and shift patterns all need thinking about.
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Common questions
Is health and safety training legally required?
Providing it is. Section 2(2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 places a general duty on employers to provide information, instruction, training and supervision, and specific regulations add to it for particular hazards. What is not required is any named course — you choose training appropriate to your risks, and accredited courses are simply the easiest way to evidence that you did.
Does online training count?
For knowledge-based topics, generally yes — awareness training, legislation, hazard recognition. Where a skill has to be demonstrated, it does not. First aid, working at height, confined space entry, plant operation and abrasive wheel mounting all need practical assessment. A mixed approach is common: e-learning for the theory, hands-on for the practical.
Do we have to pay for employees’ training?
Where training is needed to meet a health and safety duty, yes — and it should take place during working hours. The cost cannot be passed to the employee. That applies to agency and temporary workers too, though who arranges it should be agreed between the agency and the host employer.
What about contractors on our site?
Their employer trains them, but you retain duties towards people affected by your undertaking, and on construction projects CDM 2015 adds specific coordination duties. Checking competence at the gate and providing a site-specific induction is the normal way of discharging that — assuming someone else has done it is not.
How long should we keep training records?
No single retention period is set. Keep them at least as long as the person is employed and the certificate is current. Where exposure could cause disease that appears years later — asbestos, noise, hazardous substances — keeping records considerably longer is sensible, since a claim may arrive decades after the exposure.
Training by topic
Related guidance
This page is general guidance, not legal advice — refresher intervals shown as common practice are conventions rather than legal requirements, and your own risk assessment determines what is appropriate.