Health & Safety

People moving into health and safety careers need excellent communication and negotiation skills, organisational skills, problem solving ability and excellent IT skills. Their job is all about making it safe for others to go about their daily lives, whether at work or at leisure.

Their wide-ranging day-to-day tasks could include: developing safety policies and procedures; advising and training staff on health and safety practices; making regular inspections; doing risk assessments; investigating and recording accidents in the workplace; working with relevant inspectors and trade unions.

They could also work in many different industries including: construction and engineering; mining, quarrying, oil and gas exploration; manufacturing and services, and chemical processing. Health and safety professionals might also work in a public services setting, such as hospitals, educational institutions and local government.

Health & safety apprenticeships

School leavers wanting to move into this industry could do a Higher Apprenticeship in health and safety. They will gain a solid foundation and comprehensive understanding of environmental legislation, health and safety in the workplace, change control systems and risk analysis. As they develop their knowledge, they will become responsible for safety auditing and risk reduction projects.

A health and safety apprenticeship role might involve:

• Workplace assessments and advice to minimise risk.
• Planning and conducting audits/inspections and tracking actions to completion.
• Involvement in the investigation of incidents and supporting development of controls to prevent recurrence.
• Documentation of the EHS management system.
• Checking emerging legislation for relevance to EHS and support in maintaining legal registers.
• Reviewing lead and lag metrics used to monitor the EHS management system.
• Developing and delivering learning activities.
• Preparing, planning and delivering EHS awareness and promotional events.
• Provide support to sites and business units as part of a team.

A risk and safety management Degree Apprenticeship is also currently in development, as of late 2017.