Posted By p winter Jusy my opinion but it seems likely your lack of construction experience will go against you if you are looking at this area. So far as earnings go you might be best sticking with what you are experienced in.

Posted By Steve99Jones As Pete has stated, under CDM2007, it would be difficult for you to be classed as competent to fulfill the role without any real construction, or more importantly design office experience. Others will say that you need to work with other who have the experience, as the role is a corporate one and you work with others who may have the experience you lack, but this is not what clients want, and therefore is not what employers are looking for. If you want to pursue this career, you need to get yourself some serious construction and design office experience, 12 months experience as a site safety officer just isn't going to be enough under the new regs! It may seem tough but hopefully this criteria will help to avoid many of the problems we experience with the so many of the existing poorly qualified PS's. I would therefore recommend that you try and gain employment with an engineering consultancy or similar and gain experience with them in a health and safety role working their planning supervisors/CDM-C's and design staff.

Posted By BOD Hi, This is what happens in reality - there are some big 'Consultants' who provide PS services and they will take on people with very little experience because they treat PS as a paper exercise, generically porducing H&S Pre con and Pre tender plans for large clients and charge in excess of £1000 a go!! At this sort of pointless job you could get £25K, but if your serious about a health and safety career stay away from PS and get into on site health and safety. Thats my experience and i am sure that of a few others.

Posted By Lee Mac Malcom, Check out: http://www.associationfo...safety.co.uk/aclien1.jpg or for medium to large projects: http://www.associationfo...safety.co.uk/aclien2.jpg Although I totally agree having a good PS is hard to beat. However, being MaPS myslef and although I enjoyed the challenge I came a cross too many people who saw PS as another money making idea. Basically we all do our work for financial gain but lets just say there are some PSs out there who are really taking the.... So I now just work for a construction company managing all aspects of H&S including the role of PS. As has been said previously there are a lot of chancers who regurgitate the same old generic tripe and they have gotten away with it for so long. This is what has left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. But I guess not all PSs are chancers, some of us actually take the role responsibily. But you definitley need the construction experience before you can classify yourself as competent to perform such a role. Rant Over!!;-) Lee