Electrical RAMS Template (UK) — Risk Assessment & Method Statement

RAMS stands for Risk Assessment and Method Statement. It is not a single legal document defined in any one Act — it is the practical, combined form of two separate duties: the duty to assess risks (under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999) and the duty to plan safe systems of work (under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974). In the construction and electrical industries, those two duties are almost always discharged together in one document called a RAMS.

For a UK electrician, the RAMS is the document you hand to a principal contractor, site manager, or client before you are allowed to start work. It demonstrates that you have identified the hazards of the job, that you have control measures in place, and that you have a written sequence of work that is safe to follow. Without one, most CDM-notifiable sites will refuse entry.

There are three converging reasons a UK electrician will be asked for a RAMS before lifting a tool — legal, contractual, and insurance — and each one is enforceable in its own right.

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 ("CDM 2015") apply to almost all construction work in Great Britain, including electrical installation, alteration, repair, maintenance and decommissioning. They divide duties between five duty holders: client, principal designer, designer, principal contractor and contractor. As an electrician you are almost always a contractor, and on smaller jobs you may also be the principal contractor.

1. CDM 2015 Regulation 7 — the client must provide pre-construction information to designers and contractors. As an electrician, you are entitled to this and your RAMS should reference it.
2. CDM 2015 Regulation 8 — clients must ensure suitable arrangements are in place for managing the project, including provision of welfare and competent appointment of contractors.
3. CDM 2015 Regulation 13 — the principal contractor (on projects with more than one contractor) must plan, manage and monitor the construction phase, and prepare a Construction Phase Plan (CPP). Your RAMS feeds into the CPP.
4. CDM 2015 Regulation 15 — contractors (you, the electrician) must plan, manage and monitor their work and provide their workers with information, instruction, training and supervision. The RAMS is the visible artefact of Regulation 15 compliance.

On domestic projects, CDM 2015 still applies. The duties of the client are transferred to the contractor (or principal contractor where there is more than one) unless a written agreement says otherwise. A homeowner-funded rewire is in scope.

For a deeper walk-through of the duty holder framework, see our CDM 2015 for electricians guide.

The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 ("EAWR 1989") are the statutory backbone of every electrical RAMS. They apply to all work activities involving electricity, and they translate the general duty to prevent danger into specific obligations that an electrician's RAMS must reflect.

The technical electrical work itself is governed by BS 7671:2018+A4:2026. The RAMS does not replace BS 7671 — it sits alongside it. BS 7671 says how the installation must be designed and tested; the RAMS says how the people doing the work will stay safe.

There is no statutory template — but every credible principal contractor will expect to see the following sections, in roughly this order, on any electrical RAMS submitted for site access:

1. Cover sheet — document title, revision number, date, site address, scope of works, name of contractor and principal contractor.
2. Site and project details — full site address, client, project reference, site contact, hours of work, welfare arrangements.
3. Scope of works — exactly what electrical work is being carried out (e.g. "first fix wiring of 12-circuit consumer unit replacement in a single-occupancy flat" — not "electrical works").
4. Personnel and competence — names, roles, qualifications (NVQ 3, 2391, 2382, ECS gold card etc.), and confirmation of competence under EAWR 1989 Regulation 16.
5. Hazard identification — every reasonably foreseeable hazard on this job: electrical shock, electrical burn, arc flash, working at height, manual handling, hot works, dust, noise, lone working, slips and trips.
6. Risk assessment matrix — for each hazard, the persons at risk, likelihood, severity, the resulting risk rating, and the control measures applied.
7. Method statement — the actual sequence of work, step by step, including isolation point, lock-off, proving dead, and the order in which circuits are touched.
8. PPE schedule — what PPE is to be worn for which task (insulated gloves to EN 60903, arc-rated clothing, head protection, hi-vis, safety footwear, eye protection).
9. Plant and equipment — tools and test equipment to be used, including GS38-compliant test probes, calibrated insulation tester, calibrated MFT, voltage indicator.
10. Emergency procedures — first aid arrangements, electric shock response, contact numbers, nearest A&E, fire procedure.
11. Environmental considerations — waste segregation, WEEE disposal of old fittings, noise and dust controls.
12. COSHH — for solvents, cleaning agents, cable lubricants and similar substances.
13. Sign-off and acknowledgement — competent person sign-off, principal contractor acceptance, and operative briefing sheet so every worker confirms they have read and understood the RAMS.

A general "electrical works" RAMS is not enough. The hazards on a consumer unit replacement are not the same as on a commercial fit-out or on EV charger installation in a high-rise car park. The most common job-specific RAMS an electrician will need:

For complex isolation, a separate permit to work for electrical isolation sits alongside the RAMS — the RAMS describes the safe system; the permit records the discrete authorisation for that day, that circuit, that person.

A RAMS is not legally required by name on every job — but the duties it discharges (assess risk, plan safe work) are. In practice, the following triggers will almost always create a need for a written RAMS:

A RAMS is only worth the signatures on it. The sign-off chain proves that the document was prepared by a competent person, approved by the contracting parties, and briefed to every operative who has to follow it.

1. Prepared by — the competent person who drafted the RAMS. Typically a qualified electrician, supervisor, or H&S advisor with technical knowledge of the work.
2. Approved by — the contractor's responsible manager (often the same person on small firms; on larger firms a separate H&S manager).
3. Accepted by — the principal contractor or client representative who confirms the RAMS is suitable for site.
4. Briefed to — every operative who will carry out or supervise the work. Each operative signs the briefing sheet to confirm they have read, understood, and will follow the RAMS.
5. Revised — RAMS must be reviewed and revised if scope changes, if new hazards emerge, or after any incident or near-miss.

Hand-drafting a 30-page CDM-compliant electrical RAMS, with hazard matrices, control measures, sequence of work, PPE schedules, and emergency procedures, typically takes a competent electrician between 90 minutes and 3 hours per job. For sole traders winning work on price, that overhead is brutal.

The Elec-Mate RAMS Generator automates the entire document. You answer a short interview about the job — site address, scope, hazards present, personnel, programme — and the generator produces a 30-page, CDM 2015-compliant RAMS, site-specific, with EAWR 1989 references baked in, ready to PDF and submit to the principal contractor. Typical turnaround is under two minutes from interview to download.