When pressure builds, can you still see the risks in your contractor supply chain? 

Construction leaders are facing a difficult reality. Labour shortages are shrinking the pool of available contractors, projects are under pressure to move faster, and regulatory expectations around competence and due diligence continue to grow. 

But what happens when those pressures begin to affect contractor assurance? 

That was the focus of a recent webinar hosted by CHAS and HSE People, where industry experts explored the growing challenge of maintaining visibility, control and confidence across increasingly complex contractor supply chains. 

The scale of the challenge is significant. The construction workforce is now 4% smaller year on year, with 63,700 workers leaving the industry in 2024 alone. At the same time, construction continues to experience one of the highest rates of workplace fatality and injury in the UK, with fatal injury rates almost five times higher than the all-industry average. 

Against that backdrop, contractor assurance has never been more important. 

During the webinar, attendees were asked about their biggest contractor assurance challenge. The clear frontrunner was maintaining visibility across subcontractors, selected by 39% of respondents. 

It’s not difficult to see why. 

As labour shortages increase, organisations are often forced to engage unfamiliar contractors, rely on agency labour or work through multiple layers of subcontracting. The result is a growing gap between what organisations think they know about their supply chain and what is actually happening on site. 

One of the most thought-provoking moments of the session came from CHAS Head of Business Development, Niche Sullivan, who challenged organisations to ask themselves four simple questions: 

“Can the business quickly establish who is working, what they’re approved to do, whether their evidence is current, and who made that decision?” 

If any of those answers are unclear, visibility may already be starting to slip. 

The webinar also explored why contractor approval alone is no longer enough. As regulatory expectations continue to evolve, organisations must be able to demonstrate how contractor competence was assessed, what evidence was reviewed and why decisions were made. 

The full recording reveals the warning signs that assurance processes are coming under strain, why subcontractor visibility remains a persistent challenge, and the practical actions leading organisations are taking to strengthen control without creating unnecessary delays to project delivery.