Safety Helmet Colours
Build UK’s Objective
To achieve a common safety helmet colour standard to realise the following benefits:
- A single standard that can be adopted by all contractors. At
present contractors specify different requirements on helmets as there
is no industry agreed standard.
- More clearly identifying peoples roles through helmet colour
which indicates the level of responsibility on site. It fosters pride in
the wearing of a specific hat colour as a badge of responsibility.
- Reduced costs as companies will no longer have to buy different coloured helmets for different jobs.
Background
There are currently a number of different approaches to safety helmet colours:
- Research has found that while most sites / contractors have a
policy on helmet colours, sites / contractors were often implementing
different approaches.
- Individual contractors have introduced job identified safety helmet colours in their PPE Standard.
- Network Rail has specific requirements regarding safety helmet
colours on or near the line side (white for general use or blue for
inexperienced people / visitors).
- This inconsistent approach is confusing and potentially dangerous.
- On smaller sites a colour standard may be impractical, in these
cases we advise using a default colour of white as is general current
practice.
Build UK which represents many construction contractors and trade
bodies has produced an industry standard to address these issues. A hub
collaborative working group representing contractors has agreed that
there should be an aligned approach to this standard.
Build UK Standard, Minimum requirements
Sites that adopt a helmet colour code for specific roles are to use
the following colours from 1 January 2017. This guide aligns to Build UK
and Network Rail requirements.
- Reflective markings and role specific helmet decals are permitted.
- Coloured high visibility vests are permitted to identify other roles e.g. vehicle marshal.
- Helmets must meet BS EN 397.
- Network Rails PPE standard allows only white and blue helmets.
Helmet Colours :
- Black : Site Supervisors.
- Orange : Slinger / Signaller.
- Blue : Inexperienced Person / Visitor.
- White : General Use (Including sites where colour coding impractical), Manager, Client, Competent Operative.
