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A lad on the roof. Nobody footing the ladder. No cover on the skylight. Then HSE, a principal contractor or an employee's solicitor asks who is trained and what is written down. PHW assesses your roofers for competence on your own site and machines, and writes the safe-system packs that sit behind them.
A roofing firm fined after a worker fell through an uncovered skylight opening, and what you need to be able to show.
Open the film on its own page, with the words written out underneath.
Up to four of your people assessed for competence in one day, on your own site and machines, with minimum downtime. Plus a written safe-system pack for each topic.
The owner of a small roofing firm.
Pitched re-roofs on houses, flat roofs, industrial sheets and rooflights, with your people split across a few jobs. You are on the roof yourself some days, and on the phone on the others. Whoever is up there when something goes wrong, you are the one asked what was planned, who was trained and where it is written down.
Two questions come after an accident. HSE, or a principal contractor, asks whether the work was planned and the people competent. If one of your own people is hurt and claims against you, their solicitor asks the same. Training records are the employer's evidence, and they have to exist before anyone asks.
In a roofer's terms.
Falls from the eaves and the gable, and through anything that will not take a person: old sheets, rooflights, skylight openings, a board laid over a hole. HSE's own guidance on roof work, HSG33, says falls through fragile materials such as roof lights and asbestos cement sheets account for more roof work deaths than any other single cause.
A ladder nobody is footing, a stepladder under a makeshift platform, a lad going up to have a quick look. The way onto the roof is part of the plan, or it is a gap in it.
A MEWP gets a roofer to the gutter line without a ladder. It still needs an operator trained and assessed on that machine, and a plan for getting the cage down if the machine fails.
Edge protection is what stops a fall at the eaves and the verge. Who put it up, who checked it, and whether it is still there when the next job starts are the questions asked after an accident.
Cutting tiles and slates puts a spinning abrasive wheel in your hand and dust in the air, and dust from tile, slate and concrete products can carry silica. Whoever fits the wheel needs to be trained to do it, and the cut needs water or extraction.
Tiles go up a ladder or a hoist, by hand, all day. Lifting that is repeated, awkward and at height wears out backs and shoulders, and it can be avoided, assessed and reduced.
Old corrugated sheets on a factory or farm building may be asbestos cement. They are fragile as well as hazardous, and the people working on them need to know what they are looking at before they touch them.
Named, not paraphrased into a claim.
The Work at Height Regulations 2005 put the duty on the employer. Regulation 6: do not work at height where the work can reasonably be done safely another way, and where you do, take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent a fall. Regulation 4: work at height is properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out safely, with planning for emergencies and rescue.
Regulation 9 of the same Regulations covers fragile surfaces. No one passes across or near, or works on, from or near a fragile surface where the work can reasonably be done safely without doing so. Where it cannot, the employer provides suitable and sufficient platforms, coverings or guard rails, and takes measures to minimise the distance and consequences of a fall.
The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, regulation 15, require a contractor to plan, manage and monitor the construction work it carries out, or that workers under its control carry out, so that it is done without risks to health and safety so far as is reasonably practicable. A contractor must not put a person to work on a construction site unless that person has, or is in the process of obtaining, the skills, knowledge, training and experience for the tasks given to them.
PUWER 1998 regulation 9 requires every employer to ensure that people who use work equipment have received adequate training, including in the methods of using it, the risks and the precautions. That covers the saw and the MEWP as much as a machine on a building site.
A MEWP is lifting equipment, and under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 a load includes a person. Regulation 8 requires every lifting operation to be properly planned by a competent person, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner.
The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, regulation 10, require employers to give adequate information, instruction and training to employees who are or may be exposed to asbestos.
HSE's guidance, HSG33 Health and safety in roof work, covers new work, repair, maintenance, cleaning and demolition on roofs.
The employer still authorises each person in writing. PHW's certificates, records and packs are the evidence behind that decision.
The machines, packs and records that fit a roofing firm.
Getting to the eaves and gables without a ladder. The operator is assessed on the machine, including ground rescue and emergency lowering.
View →Gutter lines and eaves on industrial units, assessed on your own machine.
View →Selecting, mounting and using the wheel on a Stihl saw, with the dust control that goes with it.
View →Ladders, edges, fragile roofs and rooflights, and a rescue plan, written down for your firm.
View →Packs of tiles and rolls of felt: avoid the lift, assess it, reduce the rest.
View →Read the register before the job, presume asbestos in an older building, stop if anything is disturbed.
View →Cutting tile, slate and concrete product: water or extraction at the cut, and the right mask for the person wearing it.
View →The work at height and saw procedures, written for your site as it actually runs.
View →The answer to "who is trained?", ready on the day.
How verification works → · Take the 1-minute roofing check →
PHW has certificated thousands of candidates nationwide, for multinationals and small firms alike. Tell us the machines, the packs and how many of your people, and we will come back with a quote and dates.
Get a quoteHSE prosecutions in this line of work.
£16,650 + £7,205 costs · 2025-11-20
A worker fell through a skylight opening left uncovered on a flat roof extension, requiring surgery and long-term treatment.
Read the case →£20,000 + £5,744 costs · 2026-08-06
A bricklayer fell around eight feet through a polycarbonate roof sheet during farm repairs, fracturing vertebrae and a sternum.
Read the case →£60,000 + £6,070 costs · 2026-08-03
A worker fell through an unprotected roof light while passing materials during a refurbishment, suffering life-changing injuries.
Read the case →