Fire safety · FRA · responsible person

Fire risk assessor recruitment for UK employers who need a real assessment, not a template.

Fire risk assessor recruitment through a specialist UK headhunter. Viktorija searches her network for people who can produce a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment — not a PDF with “FRA” in the headline. £450 to start. Network only.

Start a search Built sector

The hiring pain is real, and it is not a sourcing problem.

Fire risk assessor recruitment fails when the brief is treated as a commodity. You need someone who can walk a building, talk to the responsible person, and produce an assessment that would survive contact with a fire authority — not a copied template. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 still places the duty on the responsible person. Appointing an assessor does not move that duty. Volume agencies flatten the market: a warehouse, a school, and the common parts of a residential block become the same keyword. The people who can actually do the work are usually already assessing someone else’s estate. They are not refreshing a job board at lunch.

Viktorija searches her network for fire risk assessors who can talk about a building, not only about a form. She does not advertise the role. She does not harvest profiles that added “FRA” to a headline. £450 opens a named search. If the brief is a commodity PDF mill, she will say it is not a fit.

The responsible person still holds the duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. A headhunter cannot take that off you, and should not pretend to. What she can do is reach people who have actually assessed premises of the type you described, quietly, without putting your name on a job board.

Credentials she vets

What actually gets checked.

Whether they can explain a fire risk assessment for this type of premises — not only name the Order
Whether they understand that the responsible person keeps the legal duty, even when an assessor is appointed
Whether they have assessed occupied workplaces, common parts of residential buildings, or construction sites — those are not one search
Right to work in the UK, as every employer must check: gov.uk/check-job-applicant-right-to-work

The responsible person must carry out a fire risk assessment and keep it under review. See the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, GOV.UK: fire safety in the workplace, and HSE construction fire safety. VS Recruitment is a headhunter, not a fire safety adviser.

Typical searches

Roles she is asked to find.

Fire risk assessors for commercial and workplace premises
Assessors who can work the common parts of multi-occupied residential buildings
Fire safety managers who sit with facilities and the responsible person
People who can review an existing assessment rather than reprint last year’s PDF

Also in this market: Site manager recruitment, Facilities manager recruitment, Built sector recruitment.

How the search runs

Getting fire risk assessor recruitment right.

What to put in a fire risk assessor brief

List the premises types the assessor will cover — offices, warehouses, schools, care settings, retail, the common parts of residential blocks — and say whether the job is carrying out new assessments, reviewing existing ones or managing a programme across an estate. Say who they report to, how the responsible person receives findings, whether they work in-house or for a consultancy, and the geographic footprint. A residential assessor and an industrial assessor are different searches.

What the interview should test

Give a short description of a real premises and ask how they would approach it: what they look at first, who they speak to, how they record significant findings and how they prioritise actions. Since October 2023 every responsible person has had to record the full fire risk assessment, so ask how they write findings a non-specialist can act on. Then ask how they handle a finding the client does not want to hear. That answer tells you most of what you need.

Evidence of competence

Third-party certification schemes and professional body registers are useful evidence, and many clients now expect them. They are not the whole story. Ask for an anonymised assessment they wrote, check that the premises types match yours, and look for clear reasoning rather than template text. The responsible person keeps the legal duty, so the assessor you appoint has to produce work that person can understand and act on.

Questions

FAQs

Who is the responsible person?

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the responsible person is typically the employer, owner, occupier, or someone with control of the premises — GOV.UK lists facilities managers, building managers, managing agents and risk assessors among those who may have duties. Appointing a fire risk assessor does not move the legal duty off the responsible person.

Do you certify fire risk assessors?

No. VS Recruitment is a headhunter, not a fire safety adviser and not an accreditation body. Viktorija checks whether someone can actually talk through the premises type you described. The duty to have a suitable and sufficient assessment remains with the responsible person.

Will the role be advertised?

No. She does not post fire risk assessor vacancies on job boards. The search is confidential: people are approached through her network.

What does the £450 fee buy?

It opens a named search. It is not a listing charge and it is not payment for a batch of unsolicited CVs. If the brief is not a fit, she will say so before anyone pays.

Start a fire risk assessor recruitment search.

A short note is enough. If it is not a fit, she will say so.

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