A RAMS is a Risk Assessment and Method Statement: a paired document that identifies the hazards on a job and sets out the safe, step-by-step sequence for carrying out the work. The risk assessment answers “what could go wrong and how do we control it?”; the method statement answers “exactly how will we do this safely?”. Together, RAMS are a cornerstone of health and safety planning across construction and demolition, and they are what clients, principal contractors and building control expect to see before work begins.
This guide explains what a RAMS must contain, when you legally need one, and how the process differs between construction and demolition — plus a practical question more firms are asking: can assistive technology help draft RAMS faster without weakening the human sign-off that keeps sites safe?
What is a RAMS (risk assessment and method statement)?
RAMS stands for Risk Assessment and Method Statement. The two parts are distinct but always travel together:
- The risk assessment identifies the hazards involved in a task, judges how likely and how serious the harm could be, and records the control measures that reduce that risk to an acceptable level.
- The method statement describes, in plain and ordered steps, how the work will actually be carried out — the sequence, the plant and equipment, the people, and the precautions at each stage.
Read on their own, a risk assessment tells you what to worry about and a method statement tells you what to do. Read together, they demonstrate that a competent person has thought the job through and planned it to be done safely. That is why “RAMS” has become shorthand on almost every UK site for the safety paperwork that must be in place before boots hit the ground.
What must a RAMS include?
There is no single legal template for a RAMS, but a good one is comprehensive, specific to the site, and easy for the workforce to follow. Most documents cover the same core sections:
- Project and site details — address, client, dates, the nature of the structure or works, and surrounding constraints.
- Scope of works — precisely what is being done, and to what extent.
- Hazard identification and risk assessment — each significant hazard, who might be harmed, and the control measures in place.
- Method statement / sequence of works — the safe, ordered steps for completing the task.
- Plant, equipment and PPE — the machines, tools and protective equipment required.
- Roles, competence and supervision — who does what, and who reviews and signs off.
- Emergency arrangements — first aid, rescue, incident and spill procedures.
A RAMS should be site-specific rather than generic. Copying a template and changing only the address is the classic mistake: it leaves in controls for the wrong situation and misses the hazards that make this job different.
When do you legally need RAMS? (CDM 2015)
RAMS are not named as a single legal requirement in one place, but they are how firms evidence duties that the law does impose. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require a suitable and sufficient risk assessment for work activities. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM 2015) require construction and demolition work to be planned, managed and monitored by competent people, with particular attention to high-risk activities.
In practice, a principal contractor or client will almost always ask for RAMS before allowing a contractor on site. So while the term “RAMS” is industry convention rather than a statutory phrase, producing them is effectively non-negotiable on commercial projects — and demolition in particular carries specific duties under CDM 2015 for how the work is planned and supervised.
RAMS in demolition: the high-risk specifics
In demolition, RAMS carry particular weight. The work involves structural instability, hazardous materials such as asbestos, work at height, heavy plant, dust and noise, and the ever-present risk of unplanned collapse. A clear, accurate method statement is often what stands between a controlled sequence and a serious incident — and CDM 2015 places explicit emphasis on planning demolition before it begins.
A typical demolition RAMS pulls together several sections. The table below shows what most documents need to cover.
| Section | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Project and site details | Address, client, dates, structure type and surrounding constraints |
| Scope of works | Exactly what is being demolished and to what extent |
| Hazard identification and risk assessment | Structural, asbestos, height, plant, dust, noise, services and public safety risks, with control measures |
| Method statement / sequence of works | The safe, ordered steps for taking the structure down |
| Plant, equipment and PPE | Machines, tools and protective equipment required |
| Roles, competence and supervision | Who does what, and who signs off |
| Emergency arrangements | First aid, rescue, spill and incident procedures |
Because the consequences of getting a demolition sequence wrong are so severe, demolition RAMS demand more detailed structural and hazard analysis than most other trades.
RAMS in construction
Construction RAMS follow the same structure but span a far wider range of activities: groundworks and excavations, working at height, lifting operations, hot works, confined spaces, temporary works, and the coordination of multiple trades on one site. A main contractor will typically hold RAMS from every subcontractor and check that they align before granting a permit to work.
The recurring challenge in construction is volume and repetition. A busy contractor may need dozens of RAMS across a single project, many of them covering activities the firm has carried out hundreds of times before. Each is still rewritten largely from scratch, which is where a great deal of experienced-manager time disappears.
Why is writing RAMS so time-consuming?
Ask any contracts manager and they will tell you: RAMS are essential, but drafting them is a grind. The reasons are familiar across both construction and demolition.
- They repeat a lot. A soft strip in a Victorian terrace, or a routine excavation, follows broadly the same logic each time, yet the document is often rewritten from scratch.
- Knowledge lives in people’s heads. The best method statements draw on hard-won experience that is rarely captured in a reusable, searchable form.
- Copy-and-paste creates risk. Reusing an old document by hand is quick but dangerous — it is easy to leave in a control measure for the wrong situation or forget a site-specific hazard.
- They pull senior people off the tools. RAMS drafting typically falls to experienced managers and H&S leads whose time is expensive and stretched.
- Bid and mobilisation timelines are tight. When a job needs mobilising fast, the paperwork becomes the bottleneck.
The result is that competent people spend hours reformatting and retyping what they broadly already know, instead of applying their judgement to what is genuinely new about this site.
Can AI write RAMS?
AI should not write RAMS on its own, and it should never sign them. But assistive technology is very good at the part that eats the time: producing a structured first draft from material you already own. The competent person then does what only they can do — check it against the real site, correct it and take accountability for it.
Think of it as the difference between a blank page and a well-organised starting point. The reviewer still scrutinises every hazard and control, but they are editing and challenging a draft rather than building one from nothing.
How AI-assisted RAMS drafting works
The approach Surtori favours does not replace your process — it accelerates the drafting stage within it. In practice, assistive AI is pointed at your firm’s own library of previous RAMS and combined with the new job’s site information. From there it can produce a first-pass RAMS in a fraction of the usual time, structured the way your business already writes them.
The table below compares the manual route with an assistive-AI-supported one.
| Step | Manual drafting | AI-assisted drafting |
|---|---|---|
| Find a comparable past RAMS | Search folders and email; rely on memory | System surfaces relevant prior documents from your library |
| Build the first draft | Copy, paste and retype, section by section | First-pass draft generated in your firm’s format and language |
| Add site-specific detail | Manually, alongside everything else | New site info incorporated into the draft up front |
| Review and sign-off | Competent person reviews and signs | Competent person reviews, corrects and signs |
Crucially, the golden thread of information already sitting in your systems does the heavy lifting. Surtori’s whole approach is to join your existing tools together and surface the data you already hold rather than replacing your stack — and your data stays on your own systems throughout.
This is the same principle behind our work on AI-assisted demolition estimating. As evidence of what that estimating approach can deliver, on a recent engagement with a roughly £30m-turnover UK contractor, Surtori cut estimating time by around 60–70% while targeting accuracy within about 8% on more than 80% of projects. RAMS drafting applies the same “draft fast, review carefully” logic to safety documentation, though the safety review must always remain a human judgement.
Who stays accountable for safety?
The competent person does — full stop. Assistive AI drafts; it does not decide, approve or take responsibility. Under CDM 2015, duties around planning, managing and monitoring construction and demolition work sit with named, competent individuals, and that does not change because a draft was generated faster.
Used well, the technology actually strengthens accountability. Reviewers spend their time scrutinising site-specific risks rather than retyping boilerplate, and a consistent library reduces the chance of copy-and-paste errors slipping through. The human sign-off remains the control that matters, and nothing about an AI-assisted draft removes it.
How Surtori helps
Surtori helps construction, demolition and architecture firms unlock operational efficiency with assistive technology, without ripping out the systems they already rely on. For RAMS, that means connecting to your existing document library and site information so your team can produce a strong first-pass document quickly, then apply their expertise where it counts.
We hold ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and Cyber Essentials, and your data stays on your own stack — we do not host or own it. You can explore our operational efficiency for demolition contractors hub, and if you run wider projects, our thinking on AI strategy for construction firms sets out how the same approach scales across the built environment.
If cutting RAMS drafting from days to hours — safely, with your competent person firmly in control — sounds worth exploring, book your discovery call and we will show you how it could work with your own systems.