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Supervision & management
CITB Site
Safety Plus
Site Safety Plus is the CITB's family of site supervision and management courses — SMSTS, SSSTS, Health & Safety Awareness and the refreshers that keep them alive. It is the route most site managers and supervisors take, and the certificates most principal contractors ask to see.
[A line or two on how you deliver this course specifically — what makes doing it with you easier than the provider down the road.]
- Courses in the scheme
- [No. you run]
- Shortest course
- 1 day
- Longest course
- 5 days (SMSTS)
- Delegates per course
- [No.]
- Certificate valid
- 5 years
- Renewal
- Refresher before expiry
- Price from
- [£000]
What Site Safety Plus is
Site Safety Plus is not one course. It is a scheme run by the CITB covering a ladder of site safety qualifications, from a one-day awareness course for operatives up to the five-day management course. Each one is delivered by approved training organisations against a syllabus the CITB sets, which is why an SMSTS from one provider is the same certificate as an SMSTS from another.
What differs between providers is how the week is run, how quickly you can get a date, and whether your supervisors sit the course with your own crew or with five other firms.
Certificates last five years
Every Site Safety Plus certificate runs for five years. Before it expires, the holder sits the refresher — two days for SMSTS, one day for SSSTS. Let it lapse and there is no refresher route: they sit the full course again, which for a site manager means five days off the job instead of two.
Worth knowing
Expiry dates are the single most common reason firms end up paying for the full course twice. [Mention here that you flag renewals for clients, if you do — it is a genuine reason to book with you rather than whoever comes up first on Google.]
Courses in the scheme
The list below is the standard Site Safety Plus range. Durations are set by the CITB and are the same wherever you train.
[Tick off the ones you actually deliver and delete the rest. Each of these deserves its own page later — "SMSTS course Northampton" is searched far more than "Site Safety Plus".]
Which one does your team need?
A rough rule: it follows the job title, not the length of service.
Health & Safety Awareness
The one-day entry course for people on the tools. Often the first step towards a CSCS card.
- Length1 day
- ForOperatives and new entrants
- ThenSSSTS when they step up
SSSTS
Two days for anyone supervising others — gangers, chargehands, foremen, section supervisors.
- Length2 days
- Valid5 years
- Refresher1 day
SMSTS
Five days for site managers, project managers and agents with responsibility for a site.
- Length5 days
- Valid5 years
- Refresher2 days
How the course runs
Your team is the only firm in the room. We arrange the venue, you pick the date, and the whole crew goes through together rather than being split across three different weeks.
[Detail on how you run Site Safety Plus courses — venue, whether SMSTS can be split across weeks, and what delegates need to bring.]
Questions we get asked
Answered properly, in plain English. These are marked up so Google can show them directly in search results.
How long does an SMSTS certificate last?
Five years. The two-day refresher must be completed before it expires — if it lapses, the full five-day course has to be sat again.
What is the difference between SMSTS and SSSTS?
SMSTS is for managers with responsibility for running a site and takes five days. SSSTS is for supervisors who oversee others but do not manage the site, and takes two. If someone is signing off method statements and managing subcontractors, they need SMSTS.
Does my team need Health & Safety Awareness first?
Not as a prerequisite. It is aimed at operatives rather than being a step everyone has to climb, though it is often the first safety certificate a new entrant holds.
Can you run SMSTS over separate weeks?
[Answer this — firms struggle to release a manager for five consecutive days and split delivery is a real selling point if you can do it.]
How soon can you run one?
[Typical lead time, and what you can do if it is urgent.]
Get Site Safety Plus dates and a price
[One or two lines on what happens when someone gets in touch, and how fast.]
Tell us in the message
Which course, how many people, and whether any existing certificates are close to expiry. If you are not sure which course someone needs, tell us their job title and we will tell you.