How Much Does Health and Safety Support Cost?

The answer is that it depends on a lot of things: the size and risk profile of your business, the type of support you need, the qualifications and experience of the person providing it and whether you want ongoing support or a one-off piece of work.

But "it depends" is not especially helpful when you are trying to budget.

This post breaks down what the market looks like, what different types of support typically cost and what you should reasonably expect to get for your money.

Why Are You Looking?

Most people looking for health and safety support are not doing it out of curiosity. Something has usually triggered the search.

Maybe there has been a near miss or an incident and the pressure is on to show that something has changed. Maybe someone new in the business has flagged that standards are not where they should be. Maybe the HSE has been in touch. Maybe the business is growing and what used to work for five people and one site is not going to cut it at thirty people and three sites.

Sometimes it is more strategic: a director who wants the company's health and safety reputation to reflect the quality of everything else they do or a management team that has realised compliance is getting in the way of winning contracts rather than supporting them.

Knowing why you are looking helps you work out what kind of support you actually need, which in turn roughly tells you what it should cost. A business that needs a competent person to answer occasional queries has very different requirements to one that needs someone working alongside the site team weekly.

The Main Ways Businesses Access Health and Safety Support

Day rate or hourly consultancy. The most flexible option. You pay for time when you need it. Good for specific, clearly defined pieces of work, site visits, audits or projects with a defined scope. Less suitable as a long-term strategy for businesses that need regular input, because the cost can be unpredictable and the relationship tends to stay shallow.

Fixed-fee project work. A flat rate for a specific deliverable: a health and safety policy, a fire risk assessment, a suite of risk assessments, a Construction Phase Plan. You know what you are getting and what it costs before you start.

Retainer arrangements. An ongoing support relationship at a fixed monthly fee. The consultant acts as your competent person under Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, keeps your documentation current, provides telephone and email support and is available when things come up. Better value for most businesses than ad hoc consultancy once you factor in the regularity of actual need.

In-house hire. Employing a dedicated health and safety professional directly. Higher fixed cost, full availability and deeper familiarity with the business over time. The right answer for larger organisations with sufficient workload to justify it. Often more than most SMEs need and considerably more expensive than the alternatives once you account for the full employment cost.

Software-led compliance platforms. A growing range of online tools offer template libraries, checklists and some degree of compliance tracking for lower monthly fees. Useful as a supplementary resource. Generally not a substitute for qualified advice on real risk.

What Are the Typical Costs?

Day rates and hourly rates

For qualified, experienced health and safety consultants in the UK, day rates generally sit between £300 and £800 per day. The upper end is more typical for specialists working in higher-risk sectors such as construction, offshore or chemical manufacturing. Hourly rates typically run at £70 to £120 per hour.

Fixed-fee work

Common pieces of fixed-fee work and the typical UK market range:

• Health and safety policy development: usually £350 to £650, depending on the size and complexity of the business.

• Health and safety audit: most audits for a single-site business come in between £600 and £1,200 all in, covering the visit and the written report.

• Risk assessments: highly variable. A general risk assessment suite for a low-risk office environment might cost from £300 or construction RAMS with task-specific detail cost more, particularly where site visits are involved.

• Fire risk assessments: typically £350 to £600 for commercial premises, with larger or more complex sites sitting higher.

Retainer packages

The market here ranges considerably. Entry-level telephone and email support retainers, designed for very small businesses or sole traders, start from around £75 to £150 per month. These provide competent person appointment documentation and access to advice, but limited proactive input.

More comprehensive retainers covering regular site visits or audits, document production and review and hands-on support with the management system typically sit between £400 and £1,000 per month, depending on the size and risk profile of the business.

Full-time hire vs. consultancy: what the numbers actually look like

This comparison is worth doing properly because a lot of businesses assume bringing someone in-house is the more serious or committed option.

A health and safety manager at mid-level in the UK earns an average salary of around £50,000 per year. Once you add employer National Insurance contributions, pension contributions, paid holiday, sick leave, CPD costs, professional membership fees and the management time involved in having a direct employee, the true annual cost is typically in the range of £63,000 to £75,000 for a competent, qualified individual.

And that is before the question of workload. An in-house hire working for one employer will spend a portion of their time in meetings, dealing with admin and managing the day-to-day overhead of employment.

Consultants working on a focused engagement tend to be considerably more task-efficient because that is what the arrangement is built around.

For most SMEs, the maths favours a well-structured retainer or a combination of fixed-fee project work and retained support. You get access to qualified expertise, competent person provision and documented accountability for a fraction of the full-time employment cost. A comprehensive retainer for a medium-risk business with around 50 employees typically sits at £1000 to £1,500 per month. Annualised, that is £12,000 to £18,000. Compare that to £52,000 plus.

The case for in-house hire strengthens as the business grows, as risk complexity increases and as the volume of work reaches a point where an external arrangement would require the equivalent of full-time engagement.

What Are You Actually Buying?

This is the question that matters more than any headline figure and it rarely gets asked directly.

Competence. Knowledge and experience built over time across multiple industries and risk environments. A competent health and safety professional knows what happens when things go wrong. They understand the legal framework well enough to give advice that stands up and they know the difference between a control measure that works in practice and one that looks right on paper.

Presence. You are paying for someone who shows up when it matters. Who attends the relevant meetings and site visits, comes prepared and is reachable when something comes up mid-project. A retainer that gives you access to a name on a certificate but no genuine availability is worth significantly less than it appears.

Protection. Ultimately, you are engaging someone to protect your people, your business and your directors. That means having the right documentation in place before something happens. If the HSE visits, if there is an incident, if a legal question arises about whether a duty of care was met, the quality of your health and safety support will matter

considerably. Good consultancy keeps you one step ahead of those situations rather than reacting to them.

Clarity. You should be able to understand the advice you receive. If someone is producing documentation that you cannot follow, giving answers that obscure more than they reveal, or burying practical guidance in technical language, that is a problem.

A good consultant will be honest about what you genuinely need, not what generates the most work. If something is being recommended that does not add real value to your risk management, it is worth asking why.

The Four Types of Provider

Understanding the type of provider you are dealing with helps you know what to expect.

Freelancer or sole trader. Direct, personal and often good value. The main limitation is capacity: if they are unwell, unavailable or overcommitted, you can be left without cover. The depth of expertise can also vary considerably and not all carry appropriate professional insurance.

Large national consultancy. Scale, systems and professional infrastructure. The risk is that the senior person who won your business is not the person doing the work. Generic approaches, high staff turnover and a tendency toward volume over quality are common criticisms. Can work well for large organisations with standardised requirements across multiple sites.

Independent mid-sized consultancy. Sector-specific expertise, genuine relationship and enough capacity to be reliable. The best option for most SMEs. You tend to get a consistent point of contact who actually knows your business, with the backing of a wider team when needed.

In-house employee. Fully embedded, continuous availability and deep organisational knowledge over time. Higher fixed cost and a long-term commitment. The right answer when the workload and risk profile justify it.

None of these is right or wrong in isolation. The question is which fits your actual level of need.

Red Flags When Choosing a Provider

A consultant who quotes without asking any questions about your business. If someone sends you a price without understanding your activities, your risk profile or what you actually need, they are guessing. Generic quotes often lead to generic support.

Documentation produced from templates with your company name dropped in at the top. This is one of the most common failings we come across when reviewing businesses existing health and safety arrangements. Generic documentation that does not reflect your actual operations is of limited value and will not hold up under scrutiny. We covered this in detail in our post on what good health and safety documentation actually looks like.

No interest in what is actually happening on your site or in your business. Effective health and safety support is built on understanding the work. A consultant who does not visit your premises, does not ask about your processes and does not engage with your people is not really in a position to give you meaningful advice.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

The HSE's 2024/25 statistics put the total cost of workplace injuries and ill health from current working conditions at £22.9 billion for 2023/24.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I legally need to appoint a health and safety consultant?

Not a consultant specifically. But Regulation 7 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer to appoint a competent person to assist in meeting health and safety duties. That can be an internal appointment, provided the person has the right knowledge and experience. Where that competence does not exist in-house, an external consultant fulfils the requirement.

How do I know if I am getting value for money?

The documentation produced reflects your actual business and operations, not a generic template. Your consultant asks questions about how the work is really done before producing anything. They tell you what you do not need as well as what you do. The documents and systems they put in place are understood and used by your people. And when something unexpected comes up, they are available and give you a straight answer.

How We At DuoDynamic Safety Solutions Can Help

We are a small independent consultancy working primarily across Yorkshire, London and the wider UK. We work on a day rate, fixed-fee and retainer basis and try to be straightforward about what clients actually need rather than generating unnecessary work.

If you want a conversation about the right level of support for your business and what it would realistically cost, get in touch via our contact page