RAMS Explained: Risk Assessments & Method Statements
What RAMS are, when you need them and what goes in them, plus how having them ready wins commercial work others cannot start.
- RAMS = Risk Assessment + Method Statement: how you will do a job safely.
- You will be asked for them on most commercial and site work, no RAMS, no start.
- They are not red tape once you have a template. They are a competitive advantage.
This is for UK tradesmen moving into commercial, site or letting-agent work. RAMS sound like paperwork for big contractors, but a one-person business needs them too, and having them ready wins jobs others cannot start.
What RAMS Actually Are
- Risk Assessment. You identify the hazards of the job (working at height, electricity, dust, hot works), who could be harmed, and the controls you will put in place.
- Method Statement, a step-by-step of how you will carry out the work safely, in order.
Together they show a client, a facilities manager, main contractor or agent, that you have thought the job through and will not be a liability on their site.
When You Need Them
- Commercial sites, offices, shops, schools and care homes.
- Subcontracting to a main contractor.
- Higher-risk work, at height, with power, hot works, confined spaces.
- Many letting agents and managing agents now ask for them too.
What Goes In Them
- Job and site details, what, where, who is doing it.
- Hazards and who is at risk, and how likely / how serious.
- Controls, PPE, isolation, barriers, permits, safe access.
- The method, the safe sequence of work, step by step.
- Emergency arrangements, first aid, what to do if something goes wrong.
Build a reusable RAMS template for your trade, then tailor it per job in minutes. Being the tradesperson who can email RAMS the same day a client asks is exactly what wins the contract, most can't.
From Paperwork to Pipeline
RAMS, the right cards and proper insurance open the door to commercial work (see breaking into commercial work). And reactive emergency callouts are often how you first get on a site's contact list, pay-per-job puts those screened calls on your phone at no upfront cost across electrical, plumbing, heating and roofing.
Emergency trade callouts across the UK
GetTheCall routes homeowner emergency calls to tradespeople in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Nottingham and Glasgow, plus 85+ other UK cities.