Cladding RAMS: a complete guide for UK cladding and facade contractors (2026)

Why cladding and facade contractors need a RAMS

A RAMS is a Risk Assessment and Method Statement combined into one document. For cladding and facade work it is the document that proves you have thought through the height, the access, the wind and the materials before the first panel goes up.

Cladding is dominated by working at height, on facades that can be many storeys up, with large heavy panels that catch the wind and access equipment that has its own serious risks. Since Grenfell, the fire performance of cladding is under intense scrutiny, and while material specification sits with the designer, the way cladding is installed still carries fire risk during construction. A main contractor will examine a cladding RAMS closely before letting you on site, because the consequences of getting facade work wrong are severe.

On any commercial site, new build, refurbishment, or work running under a principal contractor and CDM 2015, a written RAMS is expected and almost always mandatory before you can start.

Who asks for a cladding RAMS?

The people who will want to see it include main contractors and principal contractors, developers and housebuilders, building owners and managing agents, and any project manager coordinating a facade package alongside other trades. A clear, trade-specific RAMS keeps your team safe and gets you through the approval gate without delay.

The hazards a cladding RAMS must cover

A generic RAMS will not pass a competent contractor's check, because it will not address the hazards that make facade work dangerous. These are the ones that matter.

Working at height: the dominant hazard

Almost all cladding work happens at height, and falls remain the biggest cause of death in construction. Facade work is governed by the Work at Height Regulations 2005. Your RAMS must set out the access in detail - whether scaffold, mast climbers, or mobile elevating work platforms - with edge protection, fall arrest where needed, and the controls for working at a leading edge. This is the section an assessor reads first and scrutinises hardest.

MEWPs and mast climbers

Mobile elevating work platforms and mast climbing work platforms are common on facades and bring their own serious risks - overturning, entrapment, and ground failure. They fall under PUWER and require trained, competent operators. Your RAMS should set out ground assessment and load-bearing checks for the equipment, trained operators, pre-use inspection, rescue arrangements for a stranded platform, and exclusion of the area beneath.

Wind and panel handling

Large cladding panels act like sails. Lifting and fixing a big panel in even moderate wind can pull an operative off balance at height or send a panel out of control. Your RAMS should set out a wind speed limit above which panels will not be handled at height, how panels are controlled during lifting and fixing, and the manual handling controls for heavy, awkward panels under the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992. The combination of height, weight and wind is what makes cladding handling distinctive.

Fire during construction

Material fire performance is specified by the designer, but a cladding RAMS still has to manage fire during the build. Hot works during installation, combustible materials and packaging on a partly clad facade, and the spread risk a facade can create all belong in the document. Your RAMS should cover any hot-works procedure and permit, keeping combustibles controlled, and the site fire plan. This is a topic main contractors are acutely sensitive to.

Cutting, dust and falling materials

Cutting cement-particle and fibre cladding boards releases dust including respirable crystalline silica, and cutting metal panels brings its own risks, all under the COSHH Regulations. Your RAMS should set out water suppression or on-tool extraction and RPE for cutting. Falling materials are a major facade risk - panels, fixings and tools dropped from height - so the document must cover exclusion zones below, tool tethering and controlled raising of materials.

A worked example: RAMS for rainscreen cladding from a mast climber

It helps to see how the hazards turn into an actual method statement. Take a common job: installing rainscreen cladding panels to a four-storey building from a mast climbing work platform. Here is how a sound RAMS would walk through it.

Before work starts

The RAMS records that the mast climber ground conditions and base loading have been assessed, the platform is to be erected and inspected by a competent specialist, and operators are trained. It confirms a wind speed limit for panel handling, a cutting station with dust control, an exclusion zone beneath the work, and the site fire plan for any hot works.

Sequence of work and controls

Set up: establish the exclusion zone at ground level beneath the facade, confirm the mast climber inspection, and brief the team. Check the weather: confirm wind is within the limit before lifting panels, with a clear rule to stop if it rises. Raise materials: bring panels up in a controlled way, not overloading the platform, tools tethered. Cut: any cutting done at the controlled station with dust suppression and RPE, not freehand at height. Fix: install panels working from the platform with edge protection and fall arrest as required, controlling each panel against the wind during fixing. Manage fire: if hot works are needed, follow the permit and fire watch, keep combustibles and packaging controlled. Lower and clear: remove waste and offcuts, keep the area below excluded until work stops, and clear the site.

Why this reads as competent

The assessor sees the height controlled with proper access and fall protection, the mast climber managed from ground assessment to rescue, wind given a hard limit, and falling materials and fire handled. That is the difference between a RAMS for this job and a template with the name changed.

A pre-work checklist for cladding RAMS

Before you submit a cladding RAMS, or before the team starts on site, run through a short check. A RAMS that can answer yes to these is one that will pass and, more importantly, keep people safe.

• Access detailed - is the access (scaffold, MEWP, mast climber) specified with edge protection, fall arrest where needed and leading-edge controls?
• Platform managed - for MEWPs and mast climbers, are ground conditions, trained operators, inspection and rescue arrangements set out?
• Wind limit set - is there a stated wind speed above which panels will not be handled at height?
• Panel handling - are the manual handling and control measures for large, heavy, wind-catching panels covered?
• Cutting controlled - is dust suppression or on-tool extraction and RPE specified for cutting cement-fibre or metal panels?
• Falling materials - is there an exclusion zone below, tool tethering and controlled raising of materials?
• Fire during construction - are hot works, combustibles and the site fire plan addressed?
• Weather - beyond wind, are rain and other conditions affecting safe facade work covered?

Common reasons a cladding RAMS gets rejected

Knowing why documents get sent back is the fastest way to write one that does not. These are the failings an assessor sees most often on cladding RAMS, and given the height and fire sensitivity, these documents get scrutinised hard.

Working at height is vague. The most common serious failing - not specifying the access, edge protection and fall arrest in detail for facade work where falls are the dominant risk.

The platform is glossed over. Naming a MEWP or mast climber without ground assessment, operator competence, inspection and a rescue plan is a frequent and serious gap.

Wind is ignored. No wind speed limit for handling large panels at height misses one of the hazards most specific to cladding.

Fire is not addressed. Given the post-Grenfell scrutiny, a cladding RAMS silent on fire during construction and hot works will draw immediate questions.

Falling materials are missed. No exclusion zone below or tool tethering for work high on a facade overlooks an obvious and serious risk to people below.

How to write a cladding RAMS that passes

A cladding RAMS that passes first time tends to share a few features, whatever the facade system.

Make it specific to the job

The fastest way to get a RAMS rejected is to submit something obviously generic. Name the site, the building height, the cladding system - rainscreen, cement-particle, metal, brick-slip - the access equipment, and the specific hazards. An assessor can tell within seconds whether the document describes this job or is a template with the name changed.

Follow the sequence of work

The method statement should walk through the job in order: setting up access and exclusion zones, raising materials, cutting arrangements, the fixing sequence, fire and weather controls, and clearing up. Each stage links to the hazards it creates and the controls that manage them.

Rate the risks honestly

The risk assessment side rates each hazard by likelihood and severity, then again after your controls are in place. This residual-risk approach follows HSE's risk assessment guidance and is what a competent assessor expects, with working at height and falling materials rated as the serious hazards they are.

Keep it readable

The people who need to follow a RAMS are the operatives on the facade, not just the assessor. Plain language, a clear sequence and a short list of real controls beat pages of boilerplate nobody reads.

Legislation, fire and the standards behind a cladding RAMS

Cladding is a high-scrutiny trade, and a RAMS that does not reflect that will not get you on a serious facade package. Most of the work is at height from mast climbers, MEWPs or scaffold, so the Work at Height Regulations 2005 lead, with mast climbers and MEWPs also falling under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 and the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 — the method should confirm thorough examination, trained and, for MEWPs, IPAF-certified operators. Dropped objects are a defining hazard of facade work, so exclusion zones below, tool tethering and edge protection deserve their own attention rather than a passing line. Panels are heavy and wind-affected, keeping manual handling and weather firmly in scope.

The part that sets cladding apart is fire. Since Grenfell and the Building Safety Act 2022, the fire performance of external wall systems is under intense regulatory and client scrutiny, so a credible RAMS shows awareness of combustibility requirements, the manufacturer's approved system and details, and standards such as BS 8414 and the reaction-to-fire classifications that specifications now demand. Referencing Centre for Window and Cladding Technology (CWCT) standards and NFRC guidance signals you work to the level higher-risk buildings require. On those buildings the documentation expectations are higher across the board, and your RAMS is part of the golden thread of information the client must keep.

Coordinating cladding with the facade programme

Cladding ties into more interfaces than almost any other trade — the frame, the windows, the roofing, the firestopping and the weatherproofing all meet at the facade — so coordination is a genuine safety and quality issue, not an afterthought. The RAMS should address shared access on mast climbers and scaffold, the sequence with the trades either side of you, and how weathertightness and fire-stopping details are protected and inspected as the work proceeds. Deliveries of panels need craneage or hoist time and a clear route, and the exclusion zones below the working face have to be managed around everyone else on site.

Because facade defects are expensive and, in the case of fire performance, dangerous, contractors value a cladding subcontractor who documents inspection and sign-off at each interface. Building that into your method — who checks the substrate, the fixings and the firestopping, and how it is recorded — marks you out as a firm that understands the weight the industry now places on getting the envelope right.

Keeping your cladding RAMS live on site

Brief every operative from the RAMS before work starts and keep the record, and make sure the competence behind it is real — the right cards and, for a facade of any risk, demonstrable experience of the system being installed. If the fixing specification, the panel type, the access equipment or the system details change, the RAMS must be revised, because on cladding a change to the specification can change the fire performance of the whole wall, and that is not something to absorb informally.

Date and version-control every issue so the site is always working to the current method, feed any changes into the building's information record where one is required, and review the document after any incident or near miss. On higher-risk buildings especially, a cladding RAMS that is current, system-specific and fire-aware is not just good practice — it is increasingly what the law and the client demand.

The golden thread: documentation on higher-risk buildings

Since the Building Safety Act 2022, cladding on higher-risk buildings is governed not just by how the work is done but by how it is recorded, and a RAMS that shows awareness of this is far ahead of one that does not. The Act introduced the idea of a golden thread of information — an accurate, accessible, maintained record of a building's design and construction, including the external wall system — that duty-holders must keep. For a cladding contractor that means your RAMS, your inspection records, the system details and the evidence of what was actually installed are not just your paperwork; they feed the record the client is legally required to hold.

Competence is part of the same picture. The Act and the standards around it expect the people installing and overseeing facade work to be demonstrably competent for the specific system, so referencing the relevant qualifications and the manufacturer's training or approval strengthens both your method and your bid. Practically, this means capturing what you fixed, where, to what specification, and who checked it — and keeping it in a form that can be handed over. On a higher-risk building, a cladding contractor who arrives already working this way is a contractor who removes risk from the principal contractor's shoulders, which is exactly the kind of firm that gets the next facade package.

Doing it the fast way

Writing a full cladding RAMS by hand for every job is exactly the paperwork that eats evenings. That is the problem Complys was built to solve: answer a few questions about the job and the trade, and it generates a complete, cladding-specific risk assessment and method statement you can edit, download and share. The hazards above - working at height, MEWPs and mast climbers, wind, fire, cutting dust - come built into the templates, so you start from a document that already knows the trade rather than a blank page.

If you want the groundwork first, what a RAMS is and how to write one covers the essentials and the difference between a RAMS and a risk assessment clears up the usual confusion. Every trade we support is listed on the RAMS builder hub.

However it is written, a cladding RAMS exists to do one thing: protect people working at height on the facade, get you through the site gate without delay, and stand up to a contractor's scrutiny.