Contractor Management
New - now availableInvite contractors to a secure portal, check their insurance, accreditations and competence, record right to work checks across your supply chain and get warned before anything expires. Safety Mate® only approves a contractor when a reviewer says so, and keeps a tamper-evident record of every decision.
Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 extends the UK's illegal working rules beyond employees. From 1 October 2026 they also cover:
The bigger change is extended liability. A business in a subcontracting chain can be liable for an illegal worker further down the chain, even with no direct contract with that person, unless it met the prescribed requirements before the work started. Contract clauses on their own aren't enough: you need to show the checks happened in practice.
Read more: GOV.UK: penalties for employing illegal workers. Knowingly employing an illegal worker remains a criminal offence, and the Home Office can also issue illegal working closure notices.
Why teams switch
Prequalification spreadsheets, insurance certificates in inboxes and approved contractor lists that nobody updates leave you exposed the day something expires. Safety Mate® puts every contractor's evidence, status and expiry dates in one register, kept current by the contractors themselves.
Send a secure invitation and the contractor completes prequalification in a mobile-friendly portal: no licence, no password, no forms to retype.
Reviewers approve, reject or request changes on each document, then record a final decision, with conditions when needed. Nothing is approved just because a file arrived.
Contractors are reminded before insurance, accreditations and cards expire. If mandatory evidence lapses, an approved contractor drops back to Action required automatically.
Contractor management is how an organisation makes sure the businesses it brings in to do work are competent, insured and working safely, before they start and for as long as they work for you. It usually covers prequalification (checking a contractor's insurance, health and safety arrangements, accreditations and the competence of their people), a recorded approval decision, and monitoring so that nothing expires while they're on site.
HSE's guidance on managing contractors (HSG159) sets out the basics: plan the work, choose a competent contractor, assess the risks, provide information, and keep checking. On construction projects, the CDM Regulations 2015 require clients and principal contractors to appoint only contractors with the skills, knowledge, experience and organisational capability to do the work safely. From 1 October 2026, right to work checks across your supply chain are part of the picture too.
Safety Mate® builds each of these steps into Contractor Management. Approving a contractor at company level doesn't replace your project-specific planning: RAMS, inductions and permits to work still matter on every job.
See everything at once
The dashboard shows how many contractors are approved, awaiting information, pending review, conditionally approved, suspended or rejected, plus expired documents and anything expiring in the next 30 days. Click a tile to filter the register.
Insurance, H&S, accreditations and workforce status per contractor, with the next expiry date.
Find contractors by name, contact or trade, filter by project or compliance category, and send reminders in bulk.
Download the register, or a selection, as a CSV for procurement and audits.
The contractor portal
Add a contractor with a short wizard: look the company up on Companies House by number or name (or enter a sole trader, partnership or overseas business manually), add contacts, choose projects and an assessor, then send the invitation. The contractor works through each section on their phone or laptop.
A secure invitation link and a six-digit code emailed at each sign-in. Contractors never see your Safety Mate® account.
Answers autosave, uploads show progress, and the portal lists exactly what's still needed before they can submit.
After submitting, contractors keep a personal link to renew insurance, add accreditations and update their people.
Review with confidence
Open any certificate in the review drawer next to its details. Approve it, request changes with a comment the contractor sees, or reject it, and add an internal note that only your team sees. When every section is done, record the final decision.
Approve, approve with conditions the contractor can see, request more information, or reject, with an approval review date.
Approval is blocked until public and employers' liability cover is approved and in date, and Companies House flags must be acknowledged first.
Every upload is virus-scanned before anyone can open it, and each download is recorded in the audit trail.
Workforce competence
Contractors list the people who'll work on site for you, with their job role, engagement type and qualifications such as CSCS, CPCS, NPORS, IPAF, PASMA, SSSTS, SMSTS, first aid and asbestos awareness. Each card carries its own expiry date and reminder.
Not assessed, contractor attestation received, verification recorded, follow-up required, or recheck due.
Right to work details, VAT numbers and UTRs are visible only to people with the sensitive data permission.
Contractors mark people inactive when they leave your work, and the history is kept.
Everything included
From the first invitation to the day you stop using a contractor, every step is covered.
How it works
Look the company up on Companies House, add contacts and projects, and send a secure invitation.
They sign in with an email code, upload evidence, add their people and sign the declaration.
Your assessor checks each document and section, then approves, adds conditions or asks for more.
Reminders, renewals and the daily digest keep the register current, with every step in the audit trail.
FAQ
Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 extended the illegal working rules beyond employees to workers, individual subcontractors and people engaged through online matching platforms. Businesses in a subcontracting chain can now face extended liability for illegal workers further down the chain unless they meet prescribed requirements before the work starts. Civil penalties are up to £45,000 per illegal worker for a first breach and up to £60,000 for a repeat breach.
Every person a contractor puts forward is recorded with their engagement type. The contractor attests that they've checked each person's right to work, and your team records its own verification with the method and date of the check, a recheck date and any follow-up. Rechecks feed a daily digest, and every change goes into a tamper-evident audit trail. Safety Mate® records and evidences checks; it doesn't carry out Home Office checks or give legal advice.
No. Contractors are invited by email to a secure portal and sign in with a six-digit code sent to their work email each time. There are no passwords to manage, and contractors never get access to your Safety Mate® account.
Company and contact details, insurance policies with certificates, a health and safety policy and an example RAMS, their accident and enforcement record, accreditations such as CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS Worksafe, Constructionline and ISO 45001, the people who'll work on site with their qualifications and cards, subcontracting, environmental and high-risk work arrangements, and a signed declaration.
No. Uploading never approves anything. A reviewer decides on each document and section, then records a final decision. Approval is blocked until mandatory insurance is approved and in date, and an approved contractor drops back to Action required automatically if that evidence lapses.
Contractors are reminded 60, 30, 14 and 7 days before a document expires and on the day it expires, and they upload renewals through the same portal. Your team gets a daily digest of expiring documents, right to work rechecks, approval review dates and any contractor whose approval has lapsed.
Contractor Management is available to UK organisations on Safety Mate® enterprise plans. Inside your team, access is controlled by permissions to view, manage, review and see sensitive data such as tax identifiers and right to work details.
Yes. Contractors can be linked to your projects when you invite them, and Contractor Management sits next to construction phase plans, RAMS, inductions and permits to work in Safety Mate®, so your competence checks and your project safety records live in one place.
Explore the platform
Contractor Management is now live in Safety Mate®. Book a demo to see it with your own approval process and receive a tailored proposal.