How to Choose a Fire Risk Assessor: A Buyer's Checklist

If you are the responsible person for a building, you are legally accountable for its fire risk assessment — and if you bring in an assessor, choosing a competent one is part of that duty, not a detail you can hand off. The law does not give you a single qualification to look for, which makes hiring harder than it should be. This checklist gives you the qualifications, registrations, insurance, and questions that separate a competent assessor from a cheap one.

The core principle to carry through every decision: you can delegate the work, but the liability for an inadequate assessment stays with you. So the few minutes spent checking competence up front are the cheapest insurance you will buy.

This article summarises UK fire safety law for educational purposes and is not legal advice. The responsible person carries the legal liability for fire safety, even where a competent assessor carries out the assessment. For specific compliance questions, consult a competent fire risk assessor or your local fire and rescue authority.

Why Competence Is Your Responsibility, Not the Assessor's

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person to appoint a competent person where they do not have the competence themselves. Article 18 defines competence:

"A person is to be regarded as competent ... where he has sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities to enable him properly to assist in undertaking the preventive and protective measures."

Notice what this means in practice. The Order does not hand you a register of approved assessors and tell you to pick one. It puts the judgement of competence on you, the responsible person. If you appoint someone who turns out not to be competent, that is a gap in your own discharge of the duty. For the full picture of who carries the legal duty, see our guide to who is responsible for a fire risk assessment.

So the checklist below is not box-ticking — it is how you demonstrate you took reasonable steps to appoint genuine competence.

What to Check Before You Hire

Qualifications

There is no single mandatory qualification, but recognised credentials give you a baseline:

• The NEBOSH National Certificate in Fire Safety is the common entry-level qualification and a reasonable floor for a general assessor.
• For more complex or higher-risk buildings, look for higher-level fire safety qualifications and demonstrable specialist knowledge.
• Ask what the qualification actually covers — a general health-and-safety qualification is not the same as a fire-specific one.

Professional registration and certification

These are not legally mandatory, but they signal competence that has been independently checked:

• Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) Fire Risk register — a register of assessors whose competence has been assessed against published criteria.
• BAFE SP205 — third-party certification of fire risk assessment providers. Many local authorities, housing associations, and insurers require it.
• The published competence framework for individual fire risk assessors is BS 8674:2025, which sets out levels of competence (Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced) matched to building complexity. Asking which level an assessor works at is a fair, current question.

Experience for your building type

A good assessor for a simple office may not be the right person for a high-rise residential block or a care home. Ask specifically:

• How many assessments have they done for your type and complexity of building?
• Are they familiar with the duties that apply to it — for residential blocks, the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and the relevant height thresholds?

Insurance

Confirm the assessor carries professional indemnity insurance at an appropriate level. If their assessment is later found wanting, PI insurance is what stands behind their professional judgement. An assessor without it is a red flag.

A sample report

Ask to see a sample (suitably redacted) report. You are looking for site-specific findings, a clear risk evaluation, and a real action plan with priorities and timescales — not a generic template with the address swapped in. You can sanity-check the structure and completeness of a report against our free FRA report quality scorer.

The Questions That Separate Good From Cheap

When you get quotes, ask each prospective assessor:

1. What fire safety qualifications do you hold, and what professional registration or certification?
2. How much experience do you have with my building type?
3. Do you carry professional indemnity insurance, and at what level?
4. How long will you spend on site, and what does the fee include?
5. Will the report include a documented action plan with priorities and timescales?
6. Is there a follow-up or query period after the report?

A competent assessor answers these without hesitation. Evasiveness on any of them is informative.

When Cheap Is Expensive

An assessment priced far below the market rate usually means one or more of: too little time on site, a generic template report with no real site-specific observation, no proper action plan, or an assessor lacking appropriate competence or insurance. Our fire risk assessment cost guide sets out realistic fee ranges by building type, and the FRA cost calculator gives a quick benchmark.

The trap is that a cheap, inadequate assessment looks the same as a good one until it is tested — by an enforcing authority, an insurer, or a fire. Because the liability is yours as the responsible person, a false sense of compliance is the worst outcome of all. Paying a fair fee for genuine competence is not the expensive option; it is the cheap one.

A Buyer's Shortlist

• Recognised fire safety qualification (NEBOSH National Certificate in Fire Safety as a floor).
• Professional registration or BAFE SP205 certification, especially for complex buildings.
• Demonstrable experience with your building type.
• Professional indemnity insurance confirmed.
• A sample report with real, site-specific findings and an action plan.
• A clear fee, scope, on-site time estimate, and follow-up period.

Summary

Choosing a fire risk assessor is part of your legal duty as the responsible person, because the Fire Safety Order puts the judgement of competence on you. Check qualifications, professional registration or certification, building-type experience, indemnity insurance, and a sample report — and treat a suspiciously low price as a warning, not a bargain. Genuine competence is the cheapest protection you can buy against a liability that never leaves you.

For the firms and assessors on the other side of this — the people producing these reports day in, day out — AssessKit structures every assessment to a recognised methodology (PAS 79-1 for non-domestic premises, BS 9792:2025 for housing), with action tracking and review reminders so each client's record stays current and defensible. Start free — the Free plan covers two assessments a month, no card required. See pricing or read about who is building it.

Sources

• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, Article 18 — Safety assistance (competent persons) (legislation.gov.uk)
• Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (legislation.gov.uk)
• BS 8674:2025 — Built environment. Framework for competence of individual fire risk assessors. Code of practice (BSI)
• Fire Risk registration (Institution of Fire Engineers)