IN Brief:
- Construction safety leaders are putting greater weight on leading indicators as operational pressure tightens across UK sites.
- Forum discussions centred on near-miss data, psychological safety, contractor competency controls, and digital workflow visibility.
- Software is being positioned as a support for supervision and judgement, not a substitute for either.
EcoOnline used its 2026 UK & Ireland Construction Safety and Operations Forum to sharpen a message that is becoming harder to ignore on site: as programmes tighten and operating conditions become more complex, the industry is putting more weight on early warning signs, workforce reporting culture, and clearer visibility across contractors, permits, and competencies. That discussion comes against a backdrop of construction remaining the sector with the highest total number of worker fatalities in Great Britain in 2024/25.
One of the clearest themes was the move away from relying on lagging measures alone. Pat Sheehan, associate director, SHEQ, at Colas Ltd, said his team’s focus is on “near-miss reporting and trend analysis as leading indicators, so we can act earlier and prevent incidents that have a much higher potential to cause harm”. Dan MacLeod, global lead for programs and systems at AtkinsRéalis, drew a similar distinction between historic reporting and future exposure, arguing that Serious Injury and Fatality prevention gives a better read on where the next major event may emerge.
The forum also linked reporting quality to psychological safety. Steven Poxton, senior HSEQ at Winvic, warned that when operatives expect blame, reporting falls away, and with it the visibility needed to identify repeat hazards. Anonymous mobile reporting was discussed as one way to capture near misses and hazard observations earlier, particularly on fast-moving sites where supervisors are already managing multiple workfaces.
Contractor competency was another pressure point. With onboarding, certification checks, permits, and refresher training often split across paperwork and disconnected systems, delegates argued for more digital control of workforce assurance. The wider market direction points the same way, with control-of-work software spending expected to keep rising as medium-, high-, and very-high-risk organisations increase investment in systems that standardise site access, reporting, and workflow controls.
The strongest consensus, however, was that software and automation should support judgement rather than replace it. Cameras, sensors, and automatic braking can reduce exposure, but the forum heard repeated warnings about over-reliance once teams start assuming the system will always catch the risk first. Further detail on EcoOnline’s construction offer is available here.
