CHAS, Constructionline, SMAS and SafeContractor all sell the same entry ticket: an SSIP-recognised health and safety assessment that lets a buyer skip reading your paperwork. Where they differ is who names them. Across the 557 UK work-winning gates we track, Constructionline is mentioned by 100, CHAS by 59, SafeContractor by 58 and SMAS by 7 - and only one of the four is regularly demanded by name and level.
Every page ranking for "CHAS vs Constructionline" is written by someone who sells help getting through one of them. So the question they answer is "which badge is best". I run a subcontracting model - win the work, sub the delivery, keep the spread - and I keep a verified directory of where UK construction work is actually bought, with a researched record of what every buyer asks for at signup. That lets me answer the question that matters to your bank balance: which badge does the buyer you want actually write on its form?
The short answer
- Buying for Tier 1 supply chains? Constructionline, at the level the contractor names. It is the only one of the four that major contractors in our directory demand by name and tier.
- Buying for housing associations, frameworks and repairs networks? Any SSIP member scheme usually clears the form. CHAS and SafeContractor are the two most often listed.
- Buying for Peabody, or for managing agents and FM groups? SafeContractor has the edge.
- Buying "to be safe" with no named buyer? Do not buy yet. Read the rest of this first.
What the four actually are
SSIP sits behind all of this and is not a scheme you join. It is the umbrella body for health and safety pre-qualification schemes. When a form says "SSIP accreditation required", any current member-scheme certificate satisfies it. CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS Worksafe and Constructionline's health and safety assessment are all SSIP members.
- CHAS - a health and safety assessment scheme, a founder member of SSIP, now owned by Veriforce. Three tiers. I covered it in full in what CHAS accreditation is and who asks for it.
- Constructionline - a pre-qualification platform rather than just a badge: one verified profile that buyers search and recruit their supply chains from. Bronze to Platinum, with the Common Assessment Standard at Gold. Full breakdown in Constructionline, Bronze to Platinum.
- SafeContractor - Alcumus's SSIP scheme, sold in four service plans that differ by speed and hand-holding rather than by standard.
- SMAS Worksafe - an SSIP scheme with its own SSIP and PQQ-level assessments, priced by quote rather than from a published list.
What each one costs
| Scheme | Published entry prices | How it scales |
|---|---|---|
| CHAS | Standard from £429, Advanced from £659, Elite from £949 a year | By organisation size |
| SafeContractor | Standard from £540, Assisted from £650, Express from £650, Premier from £690 a year, plus a one-off joining fee | By number of employees |
| Constructionline | Its own FAQ: from £219 a year ex VAT at the smallest band. Brokers reported 2025 smallest-band prices of Bronze £319, Gold £599, Platinum £2,549, plus a £99 year-one joining fee | By annual turnover |
| SMAS Worksafe | No published price list - quote only | By package, tier and company size |
CHAS and SafeContractor prices were checked on their own sites on 2 October 2026. Every figure is a floor for the smallest firms, not a quote, and you should add VAT.
One thing worth knowing: SafeContractor's published from-prices moved up this year. Its own pricing page now opens at £540 for the Standard plan; plenty of guides still quote it in the low £400s. The four SafeContractor plans also do not buy you a different certificate - they buy speed and an assistant. Express and Premier get you reviewed in two working days instead of twenty. That is worth paying for when a named buyer has given you a deadline, and a waste of money when they have not.
Who names which scheme: the directory count
Here is the data nobody selling accreditation help will publish. Counting every gate in our directory whose signup requirements mention each scheme, as of October 2026:
| Scheme | Gates that mention it (of 557) |
|---|---|
| SSIP itself, or CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS or Acclaim by name | 129 |
| Constructionline | 100 |
| CHAS | 59 |
| SafeContractor | 58 |
| SMAS Worksafe | 7 |
Those raw counts flatter some schemes more than others. Strip out the schemes' own entries in the directory and read what the mention actually says, and the four separate cleanly.
Constructionline: the only one named with a level. Of the 96 buyer gates that mention it, 46 are just a "Constructionline number" field on a portal's registration form - a software template box most suppliers leave blank, not a requirement. What is left includes the strongest demand in this whole comparison: 16 buyers state an explicit Constructionline requirement, usually with a tier. Kier, Amey, Laing O'Rourke, Robertson Group, Hyde and Ian Williams name Gold (Kier accepts any Common Assessment Standard certificate instead). Seddon, Sir Robert McAlpine and The Hill Group set Silver. Wates, Fortem and Novus set Bronze. Several of them recruit their supply chains through Constructionline, with a buyer code that attaches your profile to their list. None of the 557 asks for Platinum.
CHAS: almost always one option among several. Of the 56 buyer gates that mention it, 35 list CHAS as one accepted scheme in a list - "CHAS, SafeContractor, Constructionline or equivalent" - and 20 more cite it as a commonly requested example rather than a stated rule. We found one buyer gate that writes CHAS on its own. CHAS demand is real, but it is SSIP demand with CHAS's name on it.
SafeContractor: same pool as CHAS, with one hard edge. Of its 56 buyer mentions, 34 sit in the same accepted-schemes lists as CHAS. The difference is that SafeContractor holds the clearest single-scheme rule we found anywhere: Peabody requires Alcumus SafeContractor for contracts over £30k including VAT, across three of its registration routes. Mitie's supplier portal points at Alcumus vetting too.
SMAS Worksafe: accepted, rarely named. Five buyer gates mention it - Pagabo, Seddon, The Hill Group, Taylor Wimpey and RMG - and every one lists it among several accepted SSIP schemes. It clears the forms that say SSIP. Nobody in our directory asks for it by preference.
Where each scheme gets named, by buyer type
Mentions per scheme across the buyer groups in the directory (the schemes' own entries excluded; the last column counts gates naming SSIP itself or any of CHAS, SafeContractor and SMAS):
| Buyer group | Gates | Constructionline | CHAS | SafeContractor | SMAS | SSIP or a pure H&S scheme |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Social landlords and ALMOs | 93 | 32 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 16 |
| Councils and public sector | 65 | 22 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 10 |
| Frameworks and consortia | 43 | 9 | 12 | 6 | 1 | 16 |
| Tier 1 contractor supply chains | 23 | 10 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 10 |
| Insurance repair and FM | 23 | 7 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 15 |
| Housebuilders and developers | 22 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 8 |
| Managing agents and commercial estates | 15 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 1 | 13 |
| Utilities, rail and infrastructure | 22 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Read it as a map, not a league table:
- The big Constructionline numbers in social housing and councils are mostly form fields. The In-Tend portal template carries a Constructionline box, and a lot of landlords and councils run on In-Tend. Real Constructionline demand lives in the Tier 1 row.
- Managing agents are the SafeContractor lane - 8 of 15 mention it, against 4 for CHAS.
- Frameworks lean CHAS - 12 of 43, double SafeContractor.
- Utilities and rail barely look at any of the four. They run on Achilles UVDB and RISQS, which is a different conversation.
And the number that should stop most impulse purchases: 391 of the 557 gates mention none of the four schemes, and not SSIP either. Trade marketplaces, lead platforms, agencies and a large share of commercial clients care about reviews, insurance and ID, not a badge.
How to choose: the order I would buy in
- Name five buyers. Not "housing associations" - five organisations you would actually take work from. Write down exactly what each one asks for at registration.
- If any of them names Constructionline with a level, buy that level. Every paid Constructionline level includes an SSIP-recognised health and safety assessment, so it also clears the "SSIP required" forms. One subscription, both jobs.
- If they only say "SSIP", buy one member scheme and stop. Pick CHAS or SafeContractor by which one your buyers list most, then by price and speed. SMAS is a valid choice if its quote comes in lower.
- If one buyer names a specific scheme you do not hold, use Deem to Satisfy before paying twice. SSIP mutual recognition lets one member scheme recognise another's health and safety certificate without the full assessment again. It covers health and safety only - finance, CAS and audit modules are separate.
- Do not stack badges for marketing. Two health and safety assessments do not make you twice as safe to a buyer. They make you twice as busy every renewal.
A badge does not win work. It removes the reason a buyer who already wants you could have said no.
When you need none of them
Keep the money if your work comes from homeowners, trade marketplaces or word of mouth, or if you have not yet named a buyer. Accreditation with no buyer behind it is an annual subscription to a filing cabinet. And if you subcontract delivery, remember the buyer is checking the firm on the contract - so the compliance evidence behind the badge, from risk assessments to insurance, has to be real and current, not borrowed.
If your target is councils rather than Tier 1s, the registration side is in how to get onto a council approved contractor list and how to register on council procurement portals. For the wider picture of where UK work is bought, start with where to find construction contracts in the UK. All of it hangs off one idea, which is the core of construction arbitrage: know exactly which gate each buyer stands behind before you spend a pound getting through it.
A note on the numbers: the counts come from our requirements dataset covering all 557 UK gates, researched from each buyer's own registration pages, and recomputed for this post in October 2026. Earlier posts in this series counted a gate or two differently as the dataset was refreshed. Buyers change their forms, so if one you care about has changed what it asks for, its form beats my count. Prices were checked against each scheme's own site where they publish one; the price you are quoted at signup is the only one that binds.
Last checked: 2 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between CHAS and Constructionline?+
CHAS is a health and safety assessment scheme: you submit your documents once a year and an assessor checks them against a standard. Constructionline is a pre-qualification platform: one verified profile covering insurance, company standing and health and safety, which buyers search and recruit from. Both include an SSIP-recognised health and safety assessment at their entry level, so either clears a form that says 'SSIP required'. The difference is who names them. In our directory of 557 UK work sources, Constructionline is the scheme major contractors name with a specific level, while CHAS almost always appears as one accepted option among several.
Is Constructionline worth it?+
It is worth it if a buyer you are actually chasing names it. Constructionline is the only one of the four schemes that Tier 1 contractors in our directory demand by name and level - Kier, Amey, Laing O'Rourke and Robertson Group ask for Gold, Wates, Fortem and Novus set Bronze as the minimum. If your buyers are housing associations, managing agents or homeowners, a cheaper SSIP scheme usually clears the same forms. Of the 100 gates that mention Constructionline, 46 only carry a Constructionline field on a portal form, which is not a requirement.
Is SafeContractor better than CHAS?+
Neither is better in general - they clear mostly the same forms. Both are SSIP member schemes, and in our directory they are named by almost the same number of gates, 58 for SafeContractor and 59 for CHAS, usually side by side in the same list of accepted schemes. The difference is at the edges: SafeContractor carries the clearest single-scheme requirement we found, Peabody's for contracts over £30k including VAT, and it leads with managing agents. CHAS leans towards social landlords and frameworks. Buy whichever one your named buyer writes down.
Which accreditation do I need as a small contractor?+
Usually one SSIP scheme, chosen by your buyer, not by price. 129 of the 557 gates in our directory mention SSIP itself or name one of the dedicated health and safety schemes, and most of them accept any member scheme's certificate. Start by listing the five buyers you want to work for and writing down exactly what each one names. If any names Constructionline with a level, buy that, because it includes SSIP. If they only say SSIP, buy the cheapest member scheme that fits and stop there.
What does SSIP Deem to Satisfy mean?+
SSIP Deem to Satisfy is mutual recognition between SSIP member schemes. If you hold a current health and safety certificate from one member scheme, another member scheme can recognise it without you sitting the full health and safety assessment again. It covers the health and safety element only. Anything a scheme adds on top, such as finance checks, the Common Assessment Standard or an on-site audit, is assessed separately and paid for separately.
Mohamed El HadriCo-Founder
I'm a co-founder of several construction companies. I built a construction business from a 30-van operation into a lean model with 1,500+ subcontractors in the database - winning the work as the main contractor, subbing it out, and running it as a system from a laptop across multiple countries. I write this site from what actually works.
@mointhemarket · 30k followers on Instagram →Run the model with people who already do
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