Construction Health & Safety Manager — Client-Side UK

VIRTUS Data Centres; Naphill; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

VIRTUS Data Centres is seeking a Health and Safety Manager – UK Construction Lead to ensure safe delivery of construction works at client sites. The role provides competent health and safety advice, sets expectations for contractors and designers, monitors performance, and reports to senior leadership.

This is a 3-year contract. You will support CDM compliance, review safety documentation, and promote coordination between clients, designers, contractors, and operations teams across the UK.

Qualifications

• NEBOSH Construction Certificate, NEBOSH General Certificate with strong construction experience, or equivalent recognised health and safety qualification.
• Strong working knowledge of UK construction health and safety legislation and good practice, including client duties under CDM and contractor management requirements.
• Proven experience in a client-side, contractor assurance, construction safety, facilities, estates, infrastructure or project governance environment.
• Experience assessing contractor competence, reviewing safety documentation, conducting assurance visits and monitoring contractor performance.
• Experience influencing project teams and contractors without relying solely on direct line management authority.
• Membership of IOSH or another relevant professional body is desirable.
• Additional training in CDM, contractor management, auditing, temporary works, fire safety, working at height, lifting operations or behavioural safety is desirable.

Responsibilities

• Support the organisation in fulfilling its client duties under applicable construction health and safety legislation, including the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 where relevant.
• Help establish and maintain suitable client-side arrangements for managing construction projects, including governance, roles, responsibilities, competence checks, communication routes and escalation processes.
• Advise procurement, project and estates teams on health and safety requirements when appointing designers, principal designers, principal contractors and other contractors.
• Review contractor pre-qualification information, health and safety competence evidence, tender submissions and project-specific safety proposals.
• Ensure relevant pre-construction information is identified, prepared and issued to designers and contractors at the appropriate stage.
• Review construction phase plans, risk assessments, method statements, permits, lifting plans, traffic management plans and other key contractor safety documentation from a client assurance perspective.
• Monitor contractor health and safety performance through site inspections, assurance visits, audits, meetings, KPI reviews and close-out tracking.
• Challenge unsafe practices, poor planning or weak contractor controls and elevate significant concerns through agreed governance routes.
• Track contractor non-conformances, improvement actions, incidents, near misses and lessons learned, ensuring effective corrective actions are agreed and completed.
• Review contractor arrangements for high-risk activities, including working at height, excavations, lifting operations, temporary works, plant and vehicle movements, isolation works, fire risk, confined spaces and interface risks with occupied premises.
• Promote effective cooperation and coordination between the client, designers, principal contractors, contractors, site occupiers and operational teams.
• Prepare client-side health and safety performance reports, assurance summaries, trend analysis and improvement recommendations for project and senior leadership teams.
• Support incident investigations involving contractors, ensuring client-side actions, contractor actions and wider learning are captured and implemented.
• Confirm that suitable welfare, emergency arrangements, access controls and site interface arrangements are in place and maintained by the relevant contractor or principal contractor.
• Contribute to post-project reviews, contractor performance evaluations and improvements to construction safety standards, frameworks and procurement requirements.
• Support CDM compliance for projects relating to operational Data Centres (DCs) as required, including reviewing client arrangements, contractor controls, site interfaces, live operational risks and coordination with operational stakeholders.

Skills

Communication

Influencing

Stakeholder management

Organisational skills

Contractor assurance

Risk assessment

CDM knowledge

Education

NEBOSH Cert

Tools

Microsoft Office

Job description

VIRTUS Data Centres is seeking a Health and Safety Manager – UK Construction Lead to ensure safe delivery of construction works at client sites. The role provides competent health and safety advice, sets expectations for contractors and designers, monitors performance, and reports to senior leadership.

This is a 3-year contract. You will support CDM compliance, review safety documentation, and promote coordination between clients, designers, contractors, and operations teams across the UK.