Health and safety compliance in UK construction isn’t optional it’s a legal requirement, and getting it wrong can mean criminal liability. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, better known as CDM 2015, set out exactly what’s expected from everyone involved in a construction project, from the client commissioning the work through to the contractors on site.
Yet CDM 2015 is still one of the most misunderstood pieces of construction legislation. Many businesses don’t realise it applies to them at all, research has shown that a large share of organisations affected by the regulations don’t consider themselves part of the construction industry, simply because they’re not a traditional builder.
This post breaks down what CDM 2015 actually requires, who’s responsible for what, and why more construction and engineering businesses are moving these processes into digital systems rather than paper files.
Why CDM 2015 Compliance Matters
Construction remains one of the highest-risk industries in the UK. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), construction accounted for 35 worker fatalities in 2024/25 – around 28% of all fatal workplace injuries across every industry in Great Britain, despite the sector employing a much smaller share of the workforce. Falls from height remain the leading cause, responsible for an average of 21 deaths a year between 2020/21 and 2024/25.
Beyond the human cost, the financial impact is significant: work-related ill health and injury in construction is estimated to cost around £1.4 billion a year, with roughly 50,000 non-fatal injuries reported annually and millions of working days lost to injury and illness.
CDM 2015 exists to reduce these numbers by building safety planning into a project from day one, not bolting it on once construction has already started.
Who's Responsible Under CDM 2015?
CDM 2015 assigns specific legal duties to different roles on a project:
Client – Anyone commissioning construction work, whether a business or, in some cases, a private individual. The client carries the main responsibility for making sure suitable arrangements are in place for managing the project safely, including appointing the right people and allowing realistic timeframes.
Principal Designer – Appointed by the client to plan, manage and monitor health and safety during the pre-construction (design) phase. This role identifies risks before they’re built into the project, when they’re far cheaper and safer to remove.
Principal Contractor – Takes over responsibility for planning, managing and monitoring health and safety once construction work begins, coordinating between all contractors on site.
Designers and Contractors – Each have their own duties to eliminate or reduce risks within their own area of work, and to cooperate with the principal designer or principal contractor.
It’s worth noting that on smaller projects with only one contractor, some of these roles can combine but the duties themselves don’t disappear.
The Documents CDM 2015 Requires
Regardless of project size, CDM 2015 expects certain documentation to exist and be kept current:
- Construction Phase Plan – A mandatory plan setting out how health and safety will be managed during the construction phase. Every project needs one, no matter how small.
- Pre-Construction Information – Information gathered and shared with designers and contractors before work starts, covering known risks, site conditions and existing hazards.
- Health and Safety File – A record maintained throughout the project and handed over at completion, so future maintenance, renovation or demolition work can be carried out safely.
- Notification to the HSE (F10)Â – Required for larger projects, generally where work will last more than 30 working days with more than 20 workers on site at once, or where the project exceeds 500 person-days in total.
In practice, much of this still lives in folders, spreadsheets and paper files passed between contractors which is exactly where compliance gaps start to appear.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong
CDM 2015 duties are enforceable under criminal law. Failing to produce a Construction Phase Plan, losing track of pre-construction information, or being unable to produce a Health and Safety File during an audit can result in prosecution, fines, project delays and reputational damage on top of the safety risk itself.
The Health and Safety Executive’s construction statistics consistently point to the same root causes behind serious incidents: poor planning, unclear responsibilities, and information that didn’t reach the people who needed it in time. CDM 2015 is designed to close exactly those gaps but only if the paperwork behind it is actually kept up to date and accessible.
Moving CDM 2015 Compliance Off Paper
This is where digital EHS software changes the picture. Instead of a Construction Phase Plan or Health & Safety File living in a folder on someone’s desk, EHSwise lets construction teams:
- Build and update Construction Phase Plans digitally, with version history and sign-off tracking
- Capture and share Pre-Construction Information with every contractor and designer on a project, in one place
- Maintain a live Health and Safety File that’s always audit-ready, rather than reconstructed after the fact
- Run digital risk assessments and audits tied directly to the relevant project documentation
- Give principal designers, principal contractors and clients real-time visibility into compliance status, instead of waiting for the next site visit.
For businesses managing multiple sites, contractors or subcontractor chains, this matters even more — CDM 2015 doesn’t go away because a project involves five different companies. It just makes coordination harder, which is precisely the problem digital, centralised systems are built to solve.
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Key Takeaways
- CDM 2015 applies to virtually all construction work in Great Britain, not just traditional building projects
- Duties are split across clients, principal designers, principal contractors, designers and contractors — and don’t disappear on smaller projects
- A Construction Phase Plan, Pre-Construction Information and a Health and Safety File are mandatory, regardless of project size
- Non-compliance is a criminal offence, with real financial and reputational consequences
- Digital health and safety software like EHSwise turns CDM 2015 compliance from a paperwork exercise into a live, auditable process.
Want to see how EHSwise can help your team stay CDM 2015 compliant without the paper trail? Book a demo to find out more.
