How Much Does a RAMS Document Cost in the UK?

The honest answer: anywhere from £0 to £450 per document, depending on who writes it. That's a wide range, and the sweet spot for most subcontractors sits somewhere very different from where a large principal contractor lands. The figures below are a dated market snapshot, so verify current supplier prices before buying.

The four ways UK contractors get RAMS done

Every contractor I've spoken to in the last year falls into one of four buckets. The cost ranges below are based on what people are actually paying — quoted by H&S consultants, billed on subscription invoices, or absorbed into in-house staff time.

1. Free templates downloaded from the internet

Headline cost: £0. Real cost: usually a rejected document and a delayed start on site. The free templates floating around on construction forums and template sites are almost always generic — they list hazards but the method statement is either missing or written for someone else's job. Principal contractors spot this immediately at induction. You might get away with one for a domestic job for a private client, but anything going through a main contractor's H&S team is going back for rework.

Where it works: one-off work for a domestic homeowner who isn't asking for paperwork. Where it fails: anything for a principal contractor, anything notifiable under CDM 2015, anything where you'd be embarrassed to put your name on it.

2. Consultant-written, bespoke RAMS

Headline cost: £150–£450 per document. This is what a freelance H&S consultant or a small consultancy will quote for a properly written, site-specific RAMS. The high end of that range is for genuinely complex work — confined space entry, asbestos, lifting operations, anything that needs a specific competency the consultant has to apply.

What you're paying for: someone with NEBOSH (or equivalent) sitting down with your scope of works, walking through the hazards, writing the method statement step by step, and putting their name on it. For a one-off job worth £20,000 or more, that's a sensible spend. For the third RAMS this month for a similar job, you're paying for something you could do yourself in an hour with the right tool.

Watch out for consultants who quote at the top of this range and deliver something that's clearly templated with your company name dropped in. It happens more than people admit.

3. Subscription RAMS software

Headline cost: £29–£99/mo, depending on the platform and how many seats you need. This is the route that's grown fastest in the last three years, and for good reason. If you produce more than two RAMS a month, the maths works out heavily in your favour against consultant fees.

The catch is that "RAMS software" covers a huge range of products. At the bottom end you get a template library and a PDF export — barely better than the free downloads. At the top end you get hazard libraries that prompt you for the things easy to forget, sign-off workflows for your team, version history when the principal contractor asks "which version did you submit?", and the ability to clone and edit last week's RAMS for a similar new site.

For most subcontractors producing 5+ RAMS a month, a tool in the £29–£69/mo range is the right answer. Riskora sits in that bracket because that's where the maths makes sense for the contractors we work with.

4. In-house written by your own staff

Headline cost: zero in cash, but realistically £80–£200 per document in time. A site manager or QS writing a RAMS from a blank page typically takes 2–4 hours. At a fully-loaded hourly cost of £40–£60, that's £80–£240 per document before you factor in the rework when something gets sent back.

For larger firms with someone whose job description includes safety documentation, this can work — particularly with a good template library and a clear in-house format. For smaller contractors trying to do this in the evenings, it's the most expensive option of the four when measured in hours actually spent.

What changes the price

Several things push consultant pricing up the range:

• Notifiable work under CDM 2015. Bigger projects get more scrutiny, and consultants charge more because there's more risk attached to their name.
• High-hazard activities. Asbestos, confined spaces, lifting plans, working at height with mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs) — all push consultant fees toward the £350–£450 end.
• Site visits. If the consultant has to physically walk the site before writing the method statement, expect £80–£150 added to the quote.
• Turnaround time. 48-hour turnaround usually adds 30–50% on top of the standard rate.
• Reviewing third-party RAMS. If you need someone competent to review and approve a sub-subcontractor's RAMS before you submit it, expect £75–£150 per document.

What you should actually budget

For most UK subcontractors I'd give the following rough rule of thumb:

• 1–2 RAMS a month, or one big complex job: use a consultant for the complex one (£250–£450), free templates won't cut it.
• 3–10 RAMS a month, mixed complexity: a subscription tool (£29–£69/mo) plus the occasional consultant for the genuinely hard ones.
• 10+ RAMS a month: subscription tool is non-negotiable; consider whether you need a part-time or fractional H&S advisor too.
• Principal contractor producing CPPs alongside subcontractor RAMS: proper H&S software, possibly with an in-house safety advisor — this isn't a £20/mo problem.

The hidden cost no one talks about

Rejected RAMS cost more than the document itself. If your RAMS gets bounced back at site induction, you've potentially lost half a day of labour for the crew waiting to start, plus the credibility hit with that principal contractor for next time. A £300 consultant fee that gets your team on site at 7am is cheaper than a £0 free template that delays start by four hours and costs you the next bid.

This is the real argument for paying for something — whether that's a consultant or a tool. The cost of a rejected RAMS is almost always higher than the cost of a good one.

Quick comparison: what £69 gets you

To put the subscription tier in context:

• £69 buys roughly 12 minutes of a NEBOSH consultant's time at a £250/hour day rate
• £69 covers about 1 hour of a site manager writing RAMS in the evening
• £69/month on Riskora Pro covers up to 35 final documents per month, with unlimited drafts

The maths is brutal once you're producing more than one or two RAMS a month.

Related guides

• How to write a RAMS document in the UK — the structure principal contractors expect
• Common RAMS mistakes — the errors that cause rejections
• How long does a RAMS take? — realistic timescales by method
• Free RAMS template UK — when free works and when it doesn't
• RAMS generator UK — Riskora's structured builder