How to Check SSIP Accreditation: Verifying a Contractor's Certificate

If a main contractor has asked you to prove you hold SSIP, or you are the one being asked to check a subbie before they set foot on site, there is one place to look. You check SSIP accreditation on the free SSIP Portal, by company name, in under a minute. The part nobody tells you is what that search deliberately won't show you — and the four reasons a perfectly valid, fully paid-up firm can come back with nothing.

TL;DR

You verify SSIP accreditation at ssipportal.org.uk using the "Verify an SSIP Certificate" search box, which searches over 90,000 certified suppliers by organisation name. Safety Schemes in Procurement describes the portal search as a free service for clients checking a supplier's competency. The portal confirms that a company of that name has passed an assessment against the SSIP Core Criteria and which SSIP category it covers — but it deliberately does not tell you which member scheme did the assessing, because SSIP treats all member assessments as equivalent. A valid firm can show nothing for four reasons: the upload lag (up to 72 hours after certification), a registered-name-versus-trading-name mismatch, a certificate that has lapsed, or a certificate that was never issued by an SSIP forum member at all. If you are the subcontractor, the thing to own is the renewal date — an expired entry breaks both your proof and your Deem to Satisfy claim.

Where do you check SSIP accreditation?

The SSIP Portal at ssipportal.org.uk is the single register for SSIP certification, and the certificate search sits on the portal home page under the heading "Verify an SSIP Certificate". You search by organisation name, with an option to force an exact match. SSIP states on its clients page that the portal features over 89,900 suppliers and that this free service lets clients verify a supplier's competency by searching their company name. (SSIP, Clients page, checked 09/11/2026)

There is no such thing as an SSIP membership you hold directly. SSIP's own FAQ is blunt about it: SSIP does not issue certificates to suppliers — you pick from its registered member schemes (CHAS, SMAS Worksafe, SafeContractor, Once For All Health & Safety, Acclaim and the rest) and that scheme assesses you against the SSIP Core Criteria. (SSIP Portal FAQ, checked 09/11/2026) The portal is where those scheme-issued approvals get pooled into one searchable list.

How do you verify an SSIP certificate step by step?

1. 1
   Get the registered company name, not the trading name. The portal matches on organisation name. "Northgate Electrical" won't find "Northgate M&E Services Ltd" if the certificate was issued to the limited company.
2. 2
   Search at ssipportal.org.uk. Use the "Verify an SSIP Certificate" box on the home page. Start with a loose search; only switch on exact match if you are getting too many similar names back.
3. 3
   Check the category, not just the tick. SSIP certification is issued against dutyholder categories — SSIP Approved, Contractor, Principal Contractor, Designer and Principal Designer. A firm approved as Contractor is not thereby approved as Principal Contractor.
4. 4
   Check the certificate is current. SSIP's Deem to Satisfy agreement turns on a current, valid approval with the correct details displayed on the portal. If the dates matter to the award, ask the supplier for the certificate PDF from their scheme as well.
5. 5
   If nothing comes back, don't assume they're blagging it. Work through the four causes in the next section before you park the bid.

What does the SSIP Portal actually confirm — and what doesn't it?

This is where most buyers over-read the result and most subcontractors over-promise. The portal answers a narrow question very well and refuses to answer anything else.

The SSIP Portal FAQ explains the omission of the originating scheme directly: all members assess against the same SSIP Threshold Standard, every assessment on the portal is equivalent, so SSIP does not consider it necessary to show which scheme issued it. (SSIP Portal FAQ, checked 09/11/2026)

The same FAQ also says the portal is not a contractor search engine — it exists to identify and verify a named company, not to shortlist suppliers for a task. If a buyer tells you they "found you on the SSIP Portal", they looked you up; they didn't browse you.

Why is a valid contractor not showing on the SSIP Portal?

Four causes account for nearly all of it, and only one of them means the contractor hasn't got it.

1. The upload lag. SSIP says most member schemes upload to the portal within 24 hours, but it can take up to 72 hours for an entry to become visible. (SSIP Portal FAQ, checked 09/11/2026) If you passed your assessment on a Friday afternoon and the QS checks on Monday morning, that's the whole story. Constructionline, for its part, tells members that a verified Once For All Health & Safety SSIP is uploaded to the portal within the next 48 hours.

2. A name mismatch. The certificate is issued to whatever name the scheme holds for you — usually the registered company name. Searching the trading name, the old name after a rebrand, or a name with "Ltd" dropped can return nothing.

3. The certificate has lapsed. SSIP member scheme certification runs on an annual cycle, so a firm that let its renewal slide has no current approval to display. This is the only one of the four that is a genuine fail.

4. It was never an SSIP certificate. SSIP is explicit that a stand-alone ISO 45001 certificate does not meet SSIP requirements and falls outside the SSIP scheme — the SSIP Sector Scheme audit has to be requested alongside it from a UKAS-accredited Certification Body member. (SSIP Forum membership page, checked 09/11/2026) Plenty of firms hold a safety certificate from a body that is not an SSIP forum member at all.

A worked example: the £5k maintenance contract that stalls on a name

Say a 12-engineer electrical and mechanical firm is registered at Companies House as Northgate M&E Services Ltd but has traded as "Northgate Electrical" for fifteen years — vans, invoices, email signature, the lot. It holds a current SMAS Worksafe certificate as SSIP Approved: Contractor.

The facilities manager at a retail landlord wants to award a recurring commercial maintenance contract worth roughly £5,000 a year. Her process is: search the SSIP Portal, no result, email the supplier, wait. She searches "Northgate Electrical" with exact match on. Nothing. The bid goes in the pending tray, and two weeks of email tennis follow while a competitor who sent a portal link with their bid gets mobilised.

The fix costs nothing and takes one line. When you send a certificate, send the registered name exactly as it appears on it, the SSIP category, the expiry date and a link to the portal search. Buyers verify what you hand them; they rarely go digging for a name you didn't give them. That is also why a share link that hands over current certificates without an email chain beats a PDF attachment — the buyer sees the live document, not a scan from eighteen months ago.

Should you check the SSIP Portal or the scheme's own checker?

Both, for different jobs. The SSIP Portal answers "does this firm hold a valid SSIP-recognised health and safety approval?" A scheme's own register answers "does this firm hold that specific scheme's membership, at what level?" — which is what matters when a client's PQQ names a scheme or a tier.

If the request you're answering names a scheme, go to that scheme's register — our CHAS accreditation checker guide and the Constructionline membership tier checker walk through both. For the underlying question of what SSIP recognition does and doesn't buy you across schemes, start with SSIP mutual recognition explained and the honest limits in what SSIP mutual recognition does not cover. The full picture sits on our SSIP hub.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the SSIP Portal check free?

Yes. SSIP describes the portal search as a free service that allows clients to verify a supplier's competency by searching their company name, and the "Verify an SSIP Certificate" box sits on the portal home page. Free accounts exist for member and supplier functions, but checking a certificate is the open part.

Why doesn't the SSIP Portal say which scheme assessed the contractor?

Because SSIP treats every member scheme's assessment as equivalent. Its portal FAQ states that all members assess against the SSIP Core Criteria, all assessments visible on the portal are equivalent, and so the originating scheme is not shown. If a buyer specifically needs to know, ask the supplier for the scheme certificate itself.

How long after certification does a contractor appear on the SSIP Portal?

SSIP says most member schemes upload within 24 hours, though an entry can take up to 72 hours to become visible. If you are past that window and still invisible, contact the scheme that assessed you — SSIP does not upload the data and cannot amend it.

Does an SSIP Portal entry mean a contractor is safe to use on my site?

No. SSIP is clear that supplier assessment via a member scheme is limited to the prequalification stage. Clients still have duties under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 to satisfy themselves that a supplier has the experience, trained staff and resources for the specific job. Whether SSIP is required at all is covered in our guide on whether SSIP is a legal requirement. This page is informational — for anything fact-specific, check with the scheme or a qualified adviser.

Can a buyer refuse my certificate even though it's on the SSIP Portal?

For the health and safety prequalification element, Deem to Satisfy means registered members accept a current valid approval from any other registered member, provided the correct details are displayed on the portal. But buyers routinely ask for things SSIP never covered — financial checks, a named tier such as Constructionline Gold, or the Common Assessment Standard. Those sit outside mutual recognition, as set out in the Constructionline Gold requirements guide.

The date on the certificate is the thing that bites

Everything above hangs on one fact: a portal entry is only as valid as the certificate behind it, and that certificate renews annually with whichever scheme issued it. Let it lapse and you lose both your proof and the Deem to Satisfy route into the next buyer's preferred scheme — usually discovered by a QS, mid-tender, when the search comes back empty. TradeComply tracks the renewal date on every accreditation you hold, reminds you at 60, 30 and 7 days by email and calendar, and keeps your insurance, RAMS and training records in one evidence vault so the same documents go to every scheme without being dug out twice. The advice on this page works whether you use it or not — just diarise the date somewhere you'll actually look.