What Is Contractor Management?

• Contractor management is a structured process that should include prequalification, site inductions, competence checks and performance reviews. It ensures that contractors work safely, legally and to agreed-upon standards.
• Employers are responsible for contractor safety under UK law.
• Effective management of contractors prevents incidents, delays and compliance failures.

Contractor management refers to the systems and processes used to ensure contractors in your supply chain are reliable, compliant and cost-effective.

Because they come from outside your organisation, contractors can’t be managed the same way as employees. You don’t have complete control over their training, policies or how they work on-site. Instead, you need to exercise control at different points.

The most significant of these points is prequalification – the verification that contractors meet your standards and have all necessary insurance, documents and certifications to work on your behalf. However, the best contractor management systems also account for ongoing performance and project outcomes.

A digital contractor management system helps manage contractors effectively by centralising all stages of engagement in one platform. A centralised system keeps contractor information consistent, traceable and up to date, helping you maintain control, compliance and performance.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) makes it clear that using contractors does not remove an organisation’s duty of care.

Managing Contractors (HSG159) from the HSE outlines how to maintain control over contractor work, from planning through to project completion. It identifies five key steps that form the foundation of an effective contractor management process:

1. Plan the work – Identify risks, controls and responsibilities before work begins.
2. Choose a contractor – Check competence, licences, insurance, training records and safety performance before appointing a contractor (this is covered in the prequalification process).
3. Contractors on site – Provide site-specific inductions covering rules, hazards, emergency procedures, PPE and permit-to-work requirements.
4. Keep a check – Supervise and monitor contractor activities through inspections, audits and walkarounds to ensure safe systems are followed.
5. Review the work – Record performance, incidents and lessons learned to improve future management and maintain compliance.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, you have a duty to ensure the safety of anyone affected by your work, including contractors.

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 outline specific duties for construction projects, including risk management and coordination among all parties.

Depending on the work your contractors are carrying out, other regulations may also apply. For example, the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations if your contractors are working with or near hazardous substances, or the Work at Height Regulations 2005 if their assigned tasks involve a risk of falling.

Failing to manage contractors properly can lead to prosecution, heavy fines and reputational damage. In serious cases, it can result in injury or death.

Even skilled contractors can have safety blind spots. They may know their trade well, but not essential non-technical safety skills, such as hazard identification or communication.

Effective contractor management includes site inductions and training that equips temporary workers with the awareness and knowledge they need to work safely on your site, reducing the risk of incidents. This keeps your projects on schedule, prevents costly rework and helps protect returns.

After pre-qualification, your second greatest point of control is the moment work is assigned. You need to know – with certainty – what each contractor is trained, qualified and competent to do.

A good contractor management system should account for this. Qualifications, certificates and training records should be digitised or at least centralised so that your line managers can verify each contractor is competent when assigning tasks on site.

Your reputation depends on how everyone on site behaves, including contractors. Clients, regulators and the public will judge your organisation by their conduct. One safety breach or compliance failure can damage trust and affect future business.

By the nature of their work, contractors are often exposed to higher-risk tasks. And just because someone holds a trade or technical qualification does not mean they are capable of working safely in every setting.

To compensate for this risk, many organisations invest heavily in multiple contractor management systems and processes. They adopt pre-qualification platforms, induction tools, permit-to-work systems, risk assessment templates and more – each designed to address a specific issue or step outlined by the HSE.

But decades of client work has shown this multilayered approach to be fundamentally flawed.

Contractor management is a sequence of interdependent stages. When each stage is handled by a different system, without integration or oversight, the result is fragmentation. Information is siloed. work is duplicated and there’s no consistent oversight.

As a result, poor performance is harder to detect, contractors continue to introduce risk when working and subpar suppliers are potentially rehired.

The contractor management process is easier to maintain when you have the right tools. We offer software that streamlines control across every stage of the process, from prequalification to project closeout, within a single secure platform.

With our contractor management system, you can:

• Prequalify contractors quickly with custom digital forms
• Deliver consistent online inductions prior to their arrival on site
• Verify identity and competency on-site with digital training passports
• Store all compliance documents online for easy updates and reviews
• Monitor performance data to improve future contractor selection

Using this system saves time and ensures your contractors are always working safely, legally and to your standards. To enhance compliance and efficiency, it’s worthwhile to integrate this system into your contractor management strategy.