Your licence is the business, and it is reviewed on your records.
Every job notified and waited on. A plan of work per site. Medicals, face fit tests and RPE examinations per person, each on its own clock. Air monitoring, four stage clearance and consignment notes for everything that leaves. Nobody in construction carries more evidence per pound of turnover. Thirty-plus modules on one account, and a licensed contractor turns on the handful it needs.
Insulation, coating, board, cement or soils: the material differs, the office side does not.
The removal is the part a licensed contractor already has right. It is the record behind it that decides whether the licence is renewed for three years or one: which jobs were notified and when, whether every person on the enclosure had a current medical and a face fit for the mask they wore, whether the RPE was examined, and where every consignment went.
Unibuild is bespoke business software for UK trades and specialist contractors, built inside a contracting business rather than sold into one. One account carries the labour run, plant and equipment registers, certification and training records, documents, day works, variations and applications for payment.
What licensed removal requires, and what Unibuild provides.
A refurbishment job and a licensed removal look alike in a database. They stop looking alike at the notification, at the medical, and at the clearance certificate. Each requirement below is followed by what the platform does about it.
The tradeThe platform
Notified, then waited on
The job cannot start for fourteen days
Licensed work is notified to the enforcing authority in advance, and the notice period is a hard programme constraint that clients rarely understand.
Notification goes in before work starts, with a statutory waiting period
A change of dates or scope can mean re-notifying
The plan of work is prepared for the specific job and kept on site
A job that slips two weeks takes the notification with it
The dates held against the job and watched overnight
Notification references, submission dates and earliest start dates are held against the job as dated documents, and the reminders engine checks them overnight. The notification itself goes through the enforcing authority's own system, as it does now.
Competence here is not one card. It is a medical, a face fit for the specific mask, current training and an examined piece of RPE, each expiring separately.
Medical examinations for licensed work are required at least every two years
Face fit testing is per person and per make, model and size of mask
Training is refreshed annually and is specific to licensed work
RPE is examined and the examination is recorded
Four clocks per person, in one grid that colours itself
The training matrix holds the medical, the face fit per mask, the training and the RPE examination against the person, each with its own date, turning amber before it lapses. The labour run reads the same account, so a crew is built from people who are actually clear to work.
Your equipment register is a life support register
Negative pressure units, RPE, air lines and decontamination units are not plant in the ordinary sense. They are the controls, and they carry their own examinations.
Negative pressure units carry a thorough examination at least every six months
RPE is examined and maintained on a defined interval
Decontamination units need servicing, water heating and their own records
A unit out of date stops the enclosure, not just the machine
One expiry page for the kit that makes the job legal
Every unit, mask, air line and decontamination unit is its own record with serial, service history and next examination date, watched on the same page as the vehicles. Scanning the item at the depot returns its history before it goes on a wagon.
Asbestos waste is hazardous waste, carried by a registered carrier under a consignment note to a site permitted to take it.
Consignment notes carry a code and identify producer, carrier and consignee
Records are kept for a defined period after the movement
Double bagging, labelling and the route out of the enclosure all matter
A missing note is a duty you cannot evidence, years later
The note photographed against the job as the wagon leaves
Loads out are recorded against the job on the phone with the carrier, the consignee, the code and a photograph of the note, so the evidence is captured at the kerb rather than filed later. See waste transfer notes for the paperwork itself.
A licence is granted for a period and reviewed, and the review looks at how the firm actually operated rather than at what its policies say.
A three year licence can become one year on a poor assessment
Assessors sample jobs and ask for the records behind them
Health records for employees are kept for forty years
Losing the licence ends the business, not a contract
Any job retrieved with everything attached to it
Notification, plan of work, crew and their dates, equipment used, air monitoring results, clearance certificate and consignment notes all hang off one job record. An assessor's sample becomes a lookup rather than a fortnight assembling folders from four filing cabinets.
Working in full RPE and coveralls is physically limited, and the wearing periods, breaks and decontamination cycles shape the shift.
Continuous wear of RPE is limited, with breaks built into the plan
Heat stress inside an enclosure is a real and immediate risk
Decontamination adds unproductive time at both ends of every entry
Out of hours work in occupied buildings is common and adds night shifts
Hours recorded at the unit, counted against your limits
Hours come off a scan at the decontamination unit, timed at the scan. Advanced Fatigue Manager counts shift length, travel at both ends, rest between turns and consecutive nights against the limits you set. Wearing periods inside the enclosure stay a supervisor's judgement.
Counted in the deployment Unibuild was built on, July 2026: one expiry page carrying 376 assets, 141 subcontractor certificates, 84 accreditations, 80 health assessments, 55 instruments and 9 vehicles.
Insulation and lagging
Board and panel
Cement and soils
Enclosures
Decontamination
RPE and air
Monitoring and clearance
Notifications and records
The week
An ordinary week in a licensed contractor, and the record it leaves.
Six entries from a licensed asbestos contractor's day book. Nothing here asks anybody to remember something at the end of a shift in a decontamination unit.
Monday, the crew
Next week's enclosure is crewed from people whose medical, face fit and refresher training are all current. One face fit expires on the Wednesday and the person is swapped before the notification goes in.
Caught before the notice
Tuesday, the notice
The notification reference and the earliest start date go on the job. Two weeks of programme now exist as a date something is watching rather than as a note on a wall planner.
On the clock, visibly
At the depot
Negative pressure units are scanned before they are loaded. One is a week from its six monthly examination and is swapped for a unit that will still be in date at the end of the job.
Swapped, not discovered
Wednesday, the shift
Operatives scan in at the decontamination unit. Hours land against the job, and the fatigue record picks up a crew on its fourth consecutive night in an occupied building.
Warned in time
The wagon
Nine consignments leave for the permitted site. Each note is photographed against the job with its carrier and consignee as the wagon pulls off.
Evidenced at the kerb
The assessment
A licence assessor samples three jobs from the last eighteen months. Each one returns its notification, plan, crew, equipment, clearance and consignment notes from one record.
Produced in the room
The test
Eight things asbestos software has to do.
Written from what actually costs a licensed contractor money or exposes it, rather than from a feature list. Unibuild is thirty-plus modules on one account, and a licensed firm turns on a handful of them.
Four separate clocks per person, not one card
The training matrix holds the medical, the face fit per make, model and size of mask, the annual refresher and the RPE examination against each person, each with its own date, in a grid that turns amber before a date passes. A single expiry per person is the wrong shape for this trade, because the four expire independently and any one of them stops that person working.
Notification dates watched by something that does not forget
Reminders and expiry holds the notification reference, the submission date and the earliest start against the job and checks overnight. The fourteen day constraint stops being a fact somebody remembers.
Life support equipment on its own examination register
Negative pressure units, RPE, air lines and decontamination units are records with serials, service history and next examination dates, on the same page as the vehicles. Six monthly examinations on negative pressure units and RPE examinations run on their own intervals rather than as one fleet date, and scanning the item at the depot returns it.
Every job retrievable whole, eighteen months later
Notification, plan of work, crew with their dates, equipment used, air monitoring results, clearance certificate and consignment notes all hang off one job record. A licence assessment is a sample of jobs and a request for what sat behind them, so the shape of the record decides whether that is a lookup or a fortnight.
Consignment notes captured where the wagon is
Loads out are recorded against the job on the phone with the carrier, the consignee, the code and a photograph of the note. With no compound to store anything, the note is captured at the kerb or it is captured badly. Related: waste transfer notes.
Hours that survive a run of nights in an occupied building
QR clock-in timesheets put the hours against the job at the decontamination unit, timed at the scan. Advanced Fatigue Manager counts consecutive nights, rest between turns and travel at both ends against your limits. Out of hours work in live buildings is the norm in this trade, and the hours it generates reach no weekly total.
Health records that outlive the employment
Health records for employees exposed to asbestos are kept for forty years, which is longer than most companies last and far longer than most systems. Records are held against the person on the HR record and export in full, because a record you cannot get out is not a record you have kept.
Subcontract labour held to the same standard
Subcontractor management holds insurances, licences and accreditations per firm, and a lapse removes that firm from approved status overnight. Agency operatives scan the same unit as your own people, so they appear on the attendance record, the fatigue record and the job record for the enclosure they were actually on.
The depot
What a licensed contractor holds
Written for the trade rather than for any one firm. Most licensed contractors will recognise eight or nine of these lines and ignore the rest.
What a UK licensed asbestos removal contractor holds, and the tracking quirk in each line
Key
Category
Typical items
The tracking quirk
RPE
Full face masks, powered respirators, air fed hoods, filters
Face fit is per person and per make, model and size, so a mask and a person are a pair rather than two separate records
Negative pressure units
NPUs, pre-filters, HEPA filters, ducting, smoke test kit
Carries a thorough examination at least every six months, and a unit out of date stops the enclosure rather than the machine
Decontamination units
Mobile DCUs, static units, water heaters, transit hulls, generators
A vehicle, a welfare facility and a control all at once, so it carries MOT, service and examination dates simultaneously
Mundane items whose absence stops a licensed job, ordered per enclosure rather than per month
Waste packaging
Red and clear bags, UN approved drums, wrap, labels, consignment notes
The packaging is part of the legal duty rather than a container, and the note that accompanies it is the evidence
Small plant
H type vacuums, water pumps, lighting, transformers, hand tools
An H type vacuum is a control rather than a tool, with its own service requirement and a filter change nobody logs
Monitoring equipment
Air pumps, flow meters, smoke generators, DOP test kit
Measuring instruments with calibration dates, and a lapsed one puts every reading it took in question
Transport
Waste vehicles, crew vans, DCU tow vehicles, trailers
Waste vehicles carry a carrier registration as well as an MOT, and the registration expires on its own timetable
People
Operatives, supervisors, managers, analysts where employed
Each carries four separate dates (medical, face fit, training, RPE) and any one of them lapsing stops that person working
Analytical services
Air monitoring, four stage clearance, bulk sampling, site reports
Carried out by an independent accredited body, so the certificate is somebody else's document that has to live on your job
The paperwork
Licence, notifications, plans of work, clearances, consignment notes
The only category with no physical existence and the one the licence itself is renewed on, so it is the one worth systemising first
Regulations
The regimes a licensed contractor works under
It is about who was medically cleared, what mask they were fitted for, whether the unit was examined, and where every bag went. This is the reference version, kept factual.
The regimes a UK licensed asbestos removal contractor works under, and what each requires
Regime
What it requires
Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012
The governing regulations. Most work with asbestos insulation, insulating board and coating requires a licence from HSE, granted for a period and reviewed. Licensed work must be notified in advance, carried out under a written plan of work kept at the site, with air monitoring, decontamination, and clearance before reoccupation. Non-licensed and notifiable non-licensed work sit under the same regulations with lighter but still substantial duties.
Notification and the waiting period
Licensed work is notified to the relevant enforcing authority before it starts, and there is a statutory waiting period between the notification and the start of work. A material change to the dates, the location or the scope can mean the notification no longer covers the job. For a contractor this is a programme constraint clients consistently underestimate.
Medical surveillance
Employees carrying out licensed work undergo a medical examination at intervals set by the regulations, and the employer keeps a health record. Health records are retained for forty years, which outlasts most employment and most software. A lapsed medical stops that individual working on licensed work, with no discretion available.
Face fit testing and RPE
Respiratory protective equipment must fit the wearer, which is established by a face fit test specific to the person and to the make, model and size of mask. Facial hair defeats a tight fitting mask. RPE is maintained and examined, and the examinations are recorded. Three separate dates therefore attach to one person wearing one mask.
Training
Training for licensed work is specific, and refresher training is expected annually. It is separate from the general asbestos awareness training that other trades receive, and separate again from supervisor and manager level training. Records of who was trained, when, and to what level are part of what a licence assessment examines.
LOLER and PUWER on control equipment
Negative pressure units and other equipment carry thorough examination and inspection duties, commonly at six monthly intervals for the units that make an enclosure work. These are not ordinary plant items: the examination is what allows the enclosure to be used, so an out of date unit stops the job rather than inconveniences it.
Hazardous waste and consignment notes
Asbestos waste is hazardous waste. It is double bagged and labelled, carried by a registered waste carrier under a consignment note bearing a code identifying producer, carrier and consignee, and taken to a site permitted to receive it. Records are kept for the required period, and a movement without its note is a duty that cannot be evidenced. See waste transfer notes.
Four stage clearance and reoccupation
Before an enclosure is dismantled and the area reoccupied, an independent accredited analyst carries out a four stage clearance covering a site condition check, a thorough visual inspection, air monitoring and a final assessment after dismantling. The certificate is issued by that analyst rather than by you, and it belongs on the job record alongside everything else.
CDM 2015
Licensed removal on a construction project is construction work, and the contractor duties to plan, manage and monitor apply. Where removal precedes a refurbishment or demolition, the refurbishment and demolition survey governs the whole job, and the plan of work has to agree with the construction phase plan. See the CDM 2015 guide and demolition contractors.
Working time and fatigue
Out of hours work in occupied buildings makes night shifts routine, and time in full RPE and coveralls is physically limited in its own right. The Working Time Regulations 1998 and the general duties in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 apply alongside the wearing periods in the plan of work. See fatigue management.
On the record
Questions licensed contractors ask
The questions licensed asbestos contractors actually raise on a demonstration, answered on the record. Open one to read the response.
LicenceCan we produce a sampled job whole at a licence assessment?+
Yes. An assessor picks jobs and asks for what sat behind them. Here the notification, plan of work, crew with their dates, equipment used, air monitoring, clearance certificate and consignment notes all hang off one job record. Producing the evidence becomes a lookup in the room, not a fortnight assembling folders.
CompetenceDoes it hold medicals, face fit, training and RPE as separate dates per person?+
Yes, because they expire independently and any one of them lapsing stops that person working on licensed work. Face fit is held per make, model and size of mask, which is what the test establishes. The training matrix turns amber before a date passes, and the labour run reads the same account, so a crew is built from people who are clear to work.
NotificationHow are notifications and the waiting period handled?+
Notifications go through the enforcing authority's own system, as they do now. Unibuild holds the reference, the submission date and the earliest start date against the job as dated documents, and checks them overnight. The waiting period is visible on the programme rather than remembered by one person in the office.
EquipmentWill it watch negative pressure unit and RPE examinations?+
Yes, on the same expiry page as the vehicles and the vacuums. Each unit is its own record with serial, service history and next examination date, and scanning it at the depot returns its history before it goes on a wagon. For a six week enclosure, the page shows whether a unit will still be in date at clearance, not only today.
WasteHow do we evidence every consignment note?+
Each load out is recorded against the job on the phone as the wagon leaves, with the carrier, the consignee, the code and a photograph of the note. The evidence is captured at the kerb rather than filed later. Classifying the waste and choosing a permitted consignee stay your decisions, and the record shows you made them.
AnalystsWhere does the analyst's clearance certificate go?+
On the job record, alongside the air monitoring results and everything else for that enclosure. The certificate comes from an accredited body independent of you, and Unibuild keeps it out of an email thread. Eighteen months later it is attached to the enclosure it cleared, not searchable by the analyst's filename.
Health recordsHealth records have to be kept for forty years. Can you do that?+
Yes. Health records are held against the person on the HR record and export in full at any time, so the complete record always comes out in a usable form. On leaving, the cancellation policy gives three months of full access and a clean dataset within five working days.
SubcontractorsAre subcontract and agency operatives held to the same standard?+
Yes. Subcontractor management holds insurances, licences and accreditations per firm, and a lapse removes that firm from approved status overnight. Agency operatives scan the same unit as your own people. They appear on the attendance record, the fatigue record and the job record for the enclosure they were on.
FatigueWe work nights in occupied buildings. Are those hours counted?+
Yes. Hours come off a scan at the decontamination unit, at the clock-in time recorded at the scan. Advanced Fatigue Manager counts consecutive nights, rest between turns and travel at both ends against the limits you set, and warns before the shift. Wearing periods inside the enclosure are governed by the plan of work and stay with the supervisor.
AdoptionDo operatives need a phone inside the enclosure?+
No, and nothing here asks them to take one in. The pattern is a clock-in at the unit, the plan of work signature before entry, and photographs and waste records taken outside by the supervisor. Everything else stays with the office. Permissions are set per person, so each role sees what it needs and nothing more.
SignalDoes clock-in work where there is no signal?+
Yes. Clock-ins work online and offline. In a basement or a plant room with no coverage, the scan is stored on the phone and synced as soon as the phone is back in signal. The hours still land against the job.
The marketWhat software do UK licensed asbestos contractors use?+
Most run a combination. A specialist asbestos package handles surveys and registers, the enforcing authority's system takes notifications, and a spreadsheet holds crews and their four dates. Unibuild holds the contractor's own side: people, competence, equipment examinations, site records, waste movements and the money.
PricingWe are a small firm. Is this proportionate?+
Yes. Licensed contractors are mostly small firms carrying a compliance burden the size of a much larger business, and the fee is sized to the firm. It is one figure that covers everything, with unlimited users and no charge per job or per asset. It is quoted in writing and fixed for three years.
RolloutWhere do most firms start?+
With people and equipment, because that is where a lapsed date stops work. The four dates per person and the examination dates on the units pay for themselves first, and jobs, waste and the money follow. Migration of your existing records is done for you, and the 14-day trial needs no card.
Half an hour, on your own jobs and your own people. Bring your crew list with their four dates and the units due for examination this quarter, and we will set both up in front of you. Unlimited users, never per seat, and fourteen days to try it without a card.
