Who Should Book the Scaffolding for Your Roof Job?

Somewhere in the middle of getting quotes for a re-roof, a roofer will say the scaffolding is not included and you can save money by arranging it yourself. It sounds like a reasonable offer, and sometimes it is. But scaffolding is the one part of a roof job that carries its own paperwork, its own council licence and its own safety duties, and whoever books it changes who receives all of that.

This is the process piece rather than a price guide. What follows is what actually changes when you book the scaffold yourself, the documents you should end up holding either way, and the questions worth asking before anything goes up.

At a Glance: The Paperwork You Should End Up With

Who Contracts the Scaffold, and What Changes if You Book It Yourself

Start with the thing most people get wrong. Booking the scaffold yourself does not make you a contractor, and it does not add a contractor to the job. Under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, a contractor is anyone who "in the course or furtherance of a business, carries out, manages or controls construction work". A scaffolding firm is a contractor whether your roofer engages it or you do, and you are not one either way, because you are not acting in furtherance of a business.

So a re-roof with a separate scaffolder is a project with more than one contractor in both scenarios. What actually changes is which firm is in control of the construction phase, and therefore which one automatically becomes principal contractor, and whose name ends up on the inspection reports.

The Duties Do Not Land on You

Regulation 7 of CDM 2015 is short and it is in your favour. Where the client is a domestic client, the client duties pass to the contractor on a single contractor job, or to the principal contractor where there is more than one. If you appoint nobody, regulation 7(2) appoints for you: the contractor in control of the construction phase becomes principal contractor automatically.

The Health and Safety Executive puts it in one sentence on its domestic clients page, updated 7 October 2025: "CDM 2015 does not require domestic clients to carry out client duties as these normally pass to other dutyholders." You are in scope; the duties land elsewhere. Booking the scaffold direct does not change that, though it is worth agreeing in writing who coordinates the two firms, because the regulations will pick the answer if you do not.

The Paperwork With Your Name On It

Here is where booking it yourself genuinely changes something. The Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12(4), require that a working platform used for construction work, from which a person could fall two metres or more, is not used "unless it has been inspected in that position within the previous 7 days". Regulation 12(7) then requires the person inspecting to prepare a report with the particulars in Schedule 7 and to hand it over "within 24 hours of completing the inspection" to the person on whose behalf the inspection was carried out.

Schedule 7's very first item is "the name and address of the person for whom the inspection was carried out". Hire the scaffold yourself and that is you, and you should receive a report within 24 hours of each inspection. Let the roofer hire it and that is the roofer, and you may never see one.

That cuts both ways, because responsibility for arranging those seven day inspections follows the hire. The NASC guide to appointing a scaffolding contractor, version 8, issued August 2025, says it flatly: "the responsibility for the 7-day inspection is that of the hirer / user and not the scaffolding contractor." The HSE scaffolds page, updated 19 May 2026, agrees: "it is the scaffold users/hirers responsibility to ensure that all scaffolding has been inspected." Note the wording, though. Regulation 12 binds employers and those with control, so a homeowner who controls nothing is unlikely to acquire a statutory inspection duty just by paying the hire invoice. What you do acquire is the practical job of making sure it happens, and nobody else to blame if it does not.

Getting quotes for a roof job? Compare local roofers who price the scaffolding properly and say who is arranging it at localroofer.directory. A quote that is silent on scaffolding is not a complete quote.

What to Ask For Before It Goes Up

Four questions do most of the work, and all four can be answered before anyone arrives.

Membership, Cards and Insurance

NASC membership is the quickest filter, and it is checkable through the searchable member directory on the NASC website. Its Membership Charter, issued October 2024, requires members to hold "Employee Liability and Public Liability insurance to £10m and £5m", to field "a minimum requirement of 90% CISRS carded scaffolding operatives" with at least half qualified to Scaffolder level, and to pass an annual independent compliance check. As of 16 September 2026 NASC has moved to a risk based audit programme with mystery shopping site visits, and members receive an annual certificate you can ask to see.

Do not skip past the insurance question once you have a figure, because the figure is not the answer. Most trade public liability policies exclude damage to the property being worked upon, which means "we have £5 million of public liability" does not necessarily answer who pays if a tie anchor cracks your render or a board goes through the conservatory roof. Ask specifically whether the policy excludes damage to property being worked upon, and whether the elevations the scaffold ties into count as worked upon.

Cards are worth thirty seconds. Scaffolder cards from the Construction Industry Scaffolders Record Scheme are valid for five years and must be endorsed for the type of scaffold in use, tube and fitting or system. A trainee must work "under the direct and immediate supervision" of a qualified scaffolder at all times. Cards carrying the CSCS logo can be verified by anyone with the free CSCS Smart Check app.

The Licence for the Pavement

If any part of the scaffold sits on or over the public highway, including the pavement, it needs a licence. Section 169 of the Highways Act 1980 makes it an offence to "erect or retain on or over a highway any scaffolding or other structure which obstructs the highway unless he is authorised to do so by a licence in writing issued by the highway authority". The penalty is a level 5 fine, which since March 2015 has meant an unlimited fine. The licence holder also has a duty under s.169(4) to keep the structure "adequately lit at all times between half an hour after sunset and half an hour before sunrise".

Almost always the scaffolding contractor applies, not you. Hammersmith and Fulham state it outright: "we only accept applications from scaffolding companies. Building contractors and residents cannot apply." Medway, Liverpool, Hillingdon and Richmond upon Thames all say much the same, and most require £5 million of public liability. Checkatrade's February 2026 guidance agrees, adding that you should "budget around £140 per month".

There is a real benefit hidden in the same section, and it is almost never mentioned. Section 169(7) provides that no civil or criminal proceedings lie for obstruction where the scaffold is licensed and the licence duties are performed. A properly licensed scaffold protects you from the neighbour's complaint; an unlicensed one leaves everybody exposed.

A skip on the road needs its own separate permit, and a footway or road closure is a different power again, under section 14 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.

If the scaffold needs to stand on or oversail a neighbour's land, there is no general right of access in English law, and you will need their consent. Where a neighbour refuses, the Access to Neighbouring Land Act 1992 lets a court grant access for "basic preservation works", which expressly include "the maintenance, repair or renewal of any part of a building". A re-roof qualifies; a loft conversion, being an improvement, does not.

Regional Price Differences and Licence Fees

Scaffolding prices are the least consistent figures in UK roofing, and most of the disagreement is a units problem rather than a real one. For per square metre hire, Checkatrade quotes £20 to £25 as at February 2026, MyBuilder £15 to £20 for standard residential as at 21 August 2026, and MyJobQuote £10 to £20 as at 26 August 2026. For a full wrap of a two storey semi the published figures run from about £875 a month to £6,250 for a six week hire, and two MyJobQuote pages updated on the same day in August 2026 differ from each other by a factor of about five. So the useful question is not the number, it is the basis: ask whether a price is per week, per month, or a fixed minimum hire. Minimum terms are disputed too, with Checkatrade describing four week periods as standard against MyJobQuote's six to eight weeks.

On regional variation, MyBuilder puts London and the South East at a 15% to 25% premium on scaffold hire, while MyJobQuote says hire costs can be "up to 3 times higher in London than in rural areas", and Checkatrade's own worked example for a four metre tower shows £250 in the North East, £400 in Colchester and £600 in London, a 2.4 times spread. These do not average into anything meaningful. The likely explanation is that percentages describe large scaffolds where materials dominate, and multiples describe small jobs where a day of labour and a van dominate.

Council licence fees vary on completely different bases, so there is no national average worth quoting. Nottingham's 2026/27 schedule, effective 1 April 2026, charges £245 for up to two weeks on a frontage not exceeding five metres and £415 for up to a month on a frontage up to twenty metres. Salford, for the same year, charges registered scaffolding companies £6.20 per square metre per 28 days for residential work against £8.80 for unregistered ones, so using an unregistered scaffolder costs about 42% more in licence fees for the same scaffold.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it cheaper to book the scaffolding myself?

Sometimes, because you cut out the roofer's margin on the hire, and in some council areas a registered scaffolder attracts a lower licence fee. What you take on is coordination: making sure the scaffold is up before the roofer arrives, that the seven day inspections actually happen, and that the two firms agree on the lifts and loading needed. If the roof is at all complicated, letting the roofer arrange it usually costs a little more and saves a lot of argument.

Who is responsible for the 7 day scaffold inspections?

Both NASC and the HSE place the practical responsibility on the hirer or user rather than the scaffolding contractor. NASC's August 2025 guide states that "the responsibility for the 7-day inspection is that of the hirer / user". As a homeowner you are unlikely to pick up a statutory duty under regulation 12, which binds employers and those with control, but you do pick up the job of making sure it is done. Write it into the order that the scaffolding contractor will inspect and report every seven days, and ask for copies.

Do I need a licence for scaffolding on my own driveway?

No. The licence under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980 applies to scaffolding on or over the public highway, which includes the pavement. A scaffold wholly within your own boundary needs no council licence. If any part of it oversails the footway, even the outriggers or a fan, it does, and the scaffolding company almost always applies for it.

What should I be worried about if I look at the scaffold from the ground?

The HSE publishes the numbers. Guard rails should be at least 950mm above any edge, with intermediate rails leaving no unprotected gap greater than 470mm, plus a toe board. Platforms should be fully boarded and usually at least 600mm wide. The base should be firm and level, never propped on bricks or blocks. Also look for a handover certificate and a "do not use" notice while the scaffold is still incomplete. A ladder left standing overnight is worth raising too: the HSE says "ladder removal will in most cases achieve better control than a ladder guard", and unauthorised access cases "frequently involve children".