Course overview
Liverpool’s construction sector keeps a steady rhythm. From the ongoing regeneration along the waterfront and the Ten Streets creative district to the housing, commercial and infrastructure schemes spread across the wider Liverpool City Region, there is a constant flow of work that needs managing safely and competently. Sites in the city centre, out towards Speke and the docks, across the water on the Wirral, and up through Sefton and Knowsley all share the same reality: the person running the site sets the safety standard for everyone on it. That responsibility is exactly what the CITB Site Management Safety Training Scheme (SMSTS) is built to prepare you for.
The SMSTS is the recognised standard for anyone managing a construction site in the UK, and it carries real weight with principal contractors working across Merseyside. Whether you are overseeing a fit-out in the commercial core, a residential development in the suburbs, or a refurbishment programme on the region’s older housing and industrial stock, main contractors and clients increasingly expect the site manager to hold a current SMSTS certificate before they will let you take charge. For Liverpool site managers, holding the qualification is often the difference between being considered for a role and being passed over.
The mix of work across the Liverpool City Region is part of what makes competent site management so important here. A site manager might move from a tight, logistically complex city-centre project with limited storage and busy public footfall, to a more open residential scheme on the edge of the city, to refurbishment work on ageing commercial or industrial buildings where the hazards are less predictable. Each of these brings its own risks, its own subcontractor mix and its own client expectations, and the SMSTS is designed to give you the framework to manage all of them safely rather than a set of answers for one type of job. The regeneration and development pipeline across Merseyside means demand for qualified, safety-aware managers stays consistent, and the qualification travels with you from one project to the next.
Skills Training Group runs the SMSTS as a live online course delivered over five consecutive weekdays, so you can train from home or from the site office anywhere in Liverpool and Merseyside without losing a week to travel. You get the same CITB syllabus, the same official certificate and the same experienced construction trainers you would in a classroom, joined live over a Zoom video link. The course costs £430, and Skills Training Group is a CITB-approved training organisation with a 98.7% SMSTS pass rate.
Who the SMSTS course is for
The SMSTS is aimed at people who carry management responsibility on a construction site, rather than those supervising a single gang or work area. If your day involves planning the works, coordinating subcontractors, signing off method statements and answering to the client for how the site is run, this is the course written for your role.
In and around Liverpool, delegates on the course typically include:
- Site managers and site agents running live construction sites across the city and the wider region.
- Project managers overseeing schemes from the office and on the ground.
- Construction managers and contracts managers responsible for multiple sites or work packages.
- Experienced site supervisors stepping up from an SSSTS-level role into full site management.
- Business owners and directors of small and medium contractors who manage their own projects and want to demonstrate competence to clients.
If you supervise operatives rather than manage the whole site, the two-day SSSTS course is usually the better starting point. Plenty of Liverpool supervisors take the SSSTS first and move up to the SMSTS once they are managing sites in their own right.
You do not need a specific qualification to book onto the SMSTS, but it is designed for people who either already hold site management responsibility or are moving into it, and some prior site experience will help you get the most from the week. The course draws heavily on real situations, so being able to relate the material to sites you have worked on around Liverpool makes the content far easier to absorb. If you are a smaller Merseyside contractor or a self-employed manager taking on your own projects, the SMSTS is also a straightforward way to show clients and principal contractors that you take your legal duties seriously.
What you will learn
The SMSTS covers the legal duties and practical management skills a site manager needs to run a compliant, safe construction site from start to finish. Over the five days you will build a working understanding of health and safety law and how to apply it day to day, rather than simply memorising regulations.
In summary, the course covers:
- The Health and Safety at Work Act and the key regulations that sit beneath it.
- The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations and the site manager’s duties under CDM.
- Producing and reviewing risk assessments and method statements.
- Managing high-risk activities such as work at height, excavations, temporary works, scaffolding and confined spaces.
- Occupational health, wellbeing and behavioural safety on site.
- Fire prevention, electrical safety and the safe management of demolition and groundworks.
- Leadership, communication and building a positive safety culture across your workforce and subcontractors.
Throughout the week the emphasis is on the site manager’s own responsibilities rather than general awareness. You will look at how to plan works so that safety is designed in from the outset, how to brief and monitor subcontractors, how to keep control when programmes are tight and things change on site, and how to record decisions so you can demonstrate that you managed risk properly. There is a strong focus on leadership and communication, because a large part of running a safe site in practice is influencing the behaviour of everyone who steps onto it, from experienced operatives to first-day labourers.
A detailed module breakdown is set out separately on this page. The summary above gives you the shape of what the five days deliver: the knowledge and confidence to make sound safety decisions on your Liverpool sites and to justify them to clients, contractors and the HSE if you are ever asked to.
How the course runs
The SMSTS runs over five consecutive weekdays, Monday to Friday, from 8:30 to 17:00 each day. It is a full course and full attendance across all five days is required, so it is worth blocking the week out before you book. Because the days build on one another, you cannot pick up a missed session later in the week. If you are running a live site in Liverpool at the same time, it is sensible to arrange cover in advance so you can give the course your full attention rather than trying to manage the site between sessions. The 8:30 start and 17:00 finish mirror a normal working day, which makes the week easier to plan around your other commitments.
The course is delivered live online via a Zoom video link, led in real time by a CITB-approved trainer. This is not a recorded or self-study course. You join the session each morning, work through the material with the trainer and the rest of the group, take part in discussions and group exercises, and can ask questions and talk through real situations from your own Liverpool sites as they come up. The interactive format is one of the reasons the course works well online: you get the same tutor-led experience you would expect in a classroom, without leaving Merseyside.
To take part you will need a reliable internet connection and a suitable device with a webcam and microphone. A laptop or desktop computer is strongly recommended over a tablet or phone, as you will be viewing the trainer, shared materials and taking part in activities throughout the day. It helps to set yourself up somewhere quiet where you can concentrate, as the days are full and the material builds steadily. A good standard of spoken and written English is needed to follow the sessions and complete the written parts of the assessment.
One of the practical strengths of the live online format is that the group is drawn from a range of sites and roles. Working alongside other managers and supervisors from across Liverpool and Merseyside means the discussions reflect real, varied experience, and you often pick up as much from how others have handled a situation on their sites as from the formal material itself.
Assessment and exam
Your SMSTS is assessed through ongoing participation across the week and a final examination on the last day. To pass you are expected to attend all five days and take an active part in the group work, then sit the end-of-course exam.
The exam is made up of multiple-choice, multiple-response and short written-answer questions, and lasts approximately 30 minutes. The pass mark is 81%. The written elements ask you to explain a site manager’s actions in realistic situations, so the assessment is checking that you can apply what you have learned, not just recall facts.
If you want to know what to expect before the course, Skills Training Group provides a free SMSTS practice test you can work through in your own time. You can try it here: SMSTS mock test. Working through the practice questions is a good way to settle any nerves and to spot the areas you want to pay closest attention to during the week. With careful attention across the five days, most delegates pass comfortably, which is reflected in the 98.7% SMSTS pass rate.
Why train online from Liverpool
Training online is a genuine advantage for site managers based in Liverpool and across Merseyside, and it comes with no compromise on the qualification. There is no fixed training venue for this course, and that is deliberate rather than a drawback.
Because the course is delivered live over Zoom, there is no need to travel across the city or out to another town for five days running, no parking to arrange near a training centre, and no overnight stay if you are based out towards Southport, over on the Wirral, or up through St Helens and Widnes. You simply log in from home or the site office each morning. For anyone juggling live sites elsewhere in the Liverpool City Region, being able to step away from a screen at 17:00 and still deal with the day’s site matters is a real practical benefit.
The time saving matters more than it first appears. Five days is a significant chunk out of a working week for any site manager, and adding a daily commute across Liverpool or a stay away from home on top of that only makes it harder to justify. Training online removes that overhead entirely. It also makes it far more practical to put more than one manager from the same business through the course, since nobody is tied to a particular location, and it is easier to keep the region’s management teams qualified without pulling everyone away from their sites at once.
Most importantly, the online course leads to exactly the same official CITB SMSTS certificate as a classroom course. It follows the same CITB syllabus, is delivered by the same experienced construction trainers, and is recognised in exactly the same way by contractors and clients across Liverpool, Merseyside and the rest of the UK. Choosing the online route saves you time and travel without costing you anything on the qualification itself.
Certification and five-year validity
When you pass, you receive the official CITB SMSTS certificate. This is the nationally recognised site management safety qualification, accepted across the UK construction industry and expected by principal contractors on sites throughout Liverpool and the wider region.
The certificate is valid for five years from the date you pass. Before it expires, you keep it current by completing the two-day SMSTS refresher rather than sitting the full five-day course again. You can find details of the refresher here: CITB SMSTS refresher course. It is worth putting a reminder in place well ahead of your expiry date, because letting the certificate lapse can mean having to take the full course again.
For most Liverpool site managers the certificate quickly becomes a standard part of the paperwork clients and principal contractors expect to see before you set foot on site, alongside your CSCS card and any other role-specific tickets. Keeping it current is simply part of staying available for work across Merseyside, and the two-day refresher every five years is a far lighter commitment than the initial course. Many managers book their refresher at the same point each cycle so it never catches them out.
CITB grant funding
The SMSTS is a CITB Site Safety Plus course, which means eligible employers may be able to claim a CITB grant towards the cost. If your business is registered with the CITB Levy, it is worth checking your entitlement before you book, as claiming the grant can significantly reduce the net cost of putting a site manager through the course. Grant claims are made through the CITB by the employer, and you will need your company details and CITB registration information to hand.
For many Liverpool and Merseyside contractors, the grant makes keeping the whole management team qualified far more affordable, and it is well worth building the check into how you plan training across the year. If you are unsure whether your business qualifies or how the claim works, the Skills Training Group team can point you in the right direction when you book. The course itself costs £430, and any grant you are entitled to is claimed separately through the CITB.
How to book
Booking your SMSTS course is straightforward. You can book online and see the next available start dates at the SMSTS booking page, or speak to the team on 0808 164 2780 if you would rather talk it through or arrange places for several people. If you are booking for a group of site managers from the same Liverpool business, it is worth calling so the team can help line up dates that suit everyone. You can also see all upcoming courses and further detail on the main SMSTS course page. Places on each course are limited, so booking a little ahead is the best way to secure the week that suits you and your Liverpool team.
Frequently asked questions
How long is the SMSTS course?
The SMSTS runs over five consecutive weekdays, Monday to Friday, from 8:30 to 17:00 each day. Full attendance across all five days is required to complete the course and sit the exam, so plan to keep the whole week clear.
Where does the Liverpool SMSTS course take place?
The course is delivered live online over a Zoom video link, so there is no physical venue to travel to. Delegates from across Liverpool and Merseyside join the same live, tutor-led sessions from home or the site office. You will need a reliable internet connection and a laptop or desktop with a webcam and microphone.
Is the online certificate the same as a classroom one?
Yes. Whether you train online from Liverpool or in a classroom, you follow the same CITB syllabus, sit the same exam and receive the same official CITB SMSTS certificate. It is recognised in exactly the same way by contractors and clients across Merseyside and the rest of the UK.
How much does the SMSTS course cost?
The course costs £430. If your business is registered with the CITB Levy, you may be able to claim a CITB grant towards the cost, so it is worth checking your entitlement before booking.
What is the exam like and what is the pass mark?
The exam is taken on the final day and includes multiple-choice, multiple-response and short written-answer questions. It lasts approximately 30 minutes and the pass mark is 81%. You can prepare with the free SMSTS mock test beforehand.
What is the difference between SMSTS and SSSTS?
The SMSTS is the five-day site management course for people running a construction site, such as site managers and project managers. The SSSTS is a two-day course for site supervisors overseeing a gang or work area. Many Liverpool supervisors take the SSSTS first and step up to the SMSTS as they move into full site management.
How long is the certificate valid and what happens when it expires?
The CITB SMSTS certificate is valid for five years. Before it expires you renew it by taking the two-day SMSTS refresher course rather than the full five-day course. It is best to book the refresher ahead of your expiry date so your certificate stays current.
Ready to book your place? Reserve your SMSTS course and view the next available start dates at the SMSTS booking page, or call the Skills Training Group team on 0808 164 2780 to arrange training for yourself or your Liverpool site management team.
Modules breakdown
Across the five days, your tutor works through the full CITB Site Management Safety Training Scheme syllabus, blending live teaching with group discussions, case studies and daily knowledge checks. Every module is taught with the site manager’s responsibilities in mind, covering the following key areas:
Health and safety legislation
- Health and Safety at Work Act fundamentals and their implications for construction
- Environmental legislation affecting construction sites
- Recent developments and new guidance in safety regulations
- Responsibilities under relevant legislation, and industry best practice beyond the legal minimum
Risk management
- Conducting thorough risk assessments and implementing the necessary control measures
- Ensuring safe working practices across different site activities
- Managing common safety issues on construction sites
- Creating systems for continual safety awareness
Leadership and communication
- Developing a positive safety culture on site
- Techniques for communicating safety protocols effectively
- Engaging the workforce in health and safety initiatives
- Managing subcontractors and supporting site supervisors in their safety responsibilities
Practical site management
- Day-to-day safety management techniques
- Responding to incidents and near misses
- Documentation and record-keeping requirements
- Site inspections, audits, toolbox talks and safety briefings
Special site hazards
- Working at height safety protocols
- Plant and equipment safety
- Excavation and groundworks safety
- Managing hazardous substances
- Electrical safety on construction sites
You attend all five training days, take part in the group activities and knowledge checks, then sit the final exam. On passing, you receive the official CITB SMSTS certificate, valid for five years, which you keep current with the two-day SMSTS Refresher Course before it expires. If you supervise rather than manage a site, the two-day SSSTS course may be the better fit – our team can help you choose.
Excellent
