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RAMS for Groundworks & Excavation
Excavation collapse, underground services, confined spaces, and temporary works design — all covered.
Written by Nicola Dobbie, Founder, The Site BookLast reviewed
TL;DR
- CPP: Required — CDM 2015 applies to every construction project.
- RAMS: Essential — excavation is among the most dangerous activities in construction and most clients require RAMS before digging begins.
- Key hazards: Excavation collapse (fatal within seconds), striking underground services, and confined space entry in deep excavations.
Excavation collapse risks
Excavation work is one of the most dangerous activities in construction. A cubic metre of soil weighs over a tonne — a collapsing trench wall can kill in seconds. Proper planning, temporary support design, and thorough RAMS are essential for every excavation project.
Underground services
Striking underground services during excavation can cause electrocution, gas explosions, flooding, or loss of essential services to nearby properties. Before any digging begins, you must obtain service plans, use cable avoidance tools (CAT scanners), and hand-dig trial holes near known services.
Confined spaces
Deep excavations, manholes, and chambers are confined spaces under the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997. Entry must be planned, a safe system of work established, and emergency rescue procedures in place before anyone enters.
Temporary works design
Under CDM 2015, temporary works — such as trench support, shoring, sheet piling, and formwork — must be designed, installed, and maintained by competent people. A temporary works coordinator should be appointed, and all temporary works must be inspected before use and regularly thereafter.
Common hazards
- Excavation collapse — trench collapses can be fatal within seconds
- Striking underground services (gas, electric, water, telecoms)
- Confined space entry in deep excavations
- Water ingress and unstable ground conditions
- Vehicle and plant movements near excavations
- Manual handling of heavy materials and formwork
- Noise and vibration from plant and machinery
Frequently asked questions
- Do I need RAMS for excavation work?
- Yes. Excavation work is one of the most dangerous activities in construction. Trench collapses can be fatal within seconds. RAMS are essential for identifying risks such as ground conditions, proximity to underground services, water ingress, and the need for temporary support. Most clients and principal contractors will require RAMS before any excavation begins.
- What depth requires shoring?
- There is no specific depth at which shoring becomes legally required — the need for support depends on the ground conditions, the depth and width of the excavation, nearby structures, and the duration of the work. However, as a general rule, any excavation deeper than 1.2 metres should be assessed for the need for temporary support. In poor ground conditions, shoring may be needed at much shallower depths.
- How do I check for underground services?
- Before any excavation, you must check for underground services. Start by requesting plans from utility companies or using a service such as Linesearch beforeUdig (LSBUD). On site, use cable avoidance tools (CAT) and signal generators to locate buried services. Hand-dig trial holes in the vicinity of known services. Never assume an area is clear without checking.
What's included at each tier
Starter
£0- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
Pro
£39/mo or £360/yr- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
Business
£199/mo- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
- Up to 10 internal team logins
- Site Supervisor: a field-only login for whoever runs the site
- Up to 50 active site portal users
- Site attendance check-in/check-out
- Multilingual worker inductions (9 languages)
- Optional 4-digit PIN for shared-link document sign-off
- Slack Site Ready readiness checks
Site Control
£675/site/mo- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
- Up to 10 internal team logins
- Site Supervisor: a field-only login for whoever runs the site
- Up to 50 active site portal users
- Site attendance check-in/check-out
- Multilingual worker inductions (9 languages)
- Optional 4-digit PIN for shared-link document sign-off
- Slack Site Ready readiness checks
- Permanent entrance QR: guest sign-in and contractor self-join
- CSCS credential capture, review and expiry alerts
- Digital induction gating before check-in
- Live people-on-site, attendance and audit-grade exports
- Single sign-on (SSO) with Okta or Microsoft Entra
- Public REST API with scoped account keys
- Signed real-time webhooks into your own systems
Running live sites with subcontractors? Site Control is the per-site enterprise tier above Business — entrance QR sign-in, CSCS checks, induction gating, live attendance and audit-grade exports. From £675/site per month, plus £5,000 setup.
Where it helps and where it doesn't
Pros
- Buried services and HSG47 references pre-filled in RAMS
- Excavation collapse and battering-back controls included
- Heavy plant movement and banksman guidance built in
- Temporary works sign-off template attached per project
Cons
- No BGS / Linesearch integration — services search is manual
- Temporary-works designer certificate still an external upload
- Contaminated-land handling procedures are generic, not site-specific
Why The Site Book
- UK construction compliance tool that ships RAMS + CPP + COSHH + inductions (readable and acknowledgeable in 9 worker languages on Business, with the language audit-recorded) + worker sign-off, including optional 4-digit shared-link PIN evidence on Business, plus site attendance, portal users, site files, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions.
- Generate a site-specific RAMS first draft from a natural-language brief in under five minutes, ready for competent-person review - not a template library you hand-fill.
- Controlled document workflow without an enterprise contract: version history and a recorded issue confirmation before a document is shared with a client or downloaded in the app on every plan, re-sign on revision with superseded signatures preserved plus PCPP import, cert tracking and document checking from the £39/month Pro plan - and on Business, optional named-approver routing (a designated approver accepts or rejects each version, with recorded reasons, before it can be issued) plus client approve/reject/request-changes via share links.
- Transparent pricing: Starter £0, Pro £39/month or £360/year, Business £199/month with 10 management logins and 50 active site portal users. Worker document signing has no per-signature charge; project workers count as active portal users while assigned.
- Build RAMS for any trade - add your own work types and method statements alongside the built-in library, reusable across projects, including a ready-made Commercial Solar PV group. Save a finished job as a reusable project template, or clone it, so the next job of the same shape starts from your own setup.
- COSHH goes deep: a standalone COSHH assessment document, upload-a-Safety-Data-Sheet extraction, a site-specific substance register and an expert-reviewed library - plus per-worker RAMS sign-off and a one-click Audit Pack covering documents, sign-offs, worker evidence, attendance, incidents, COSHH, permits and up to the latest 500 live Site Diary entries.
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