Book CITB SMSTS Refresher Course with live availability across the UK. Delivered by accredited providers, with transparent pricing and instant confirmation.
The CITB SMSTS Refresher is a 2-day course that renews an existing Site Management Safety Training Scheme certificate. It is part of the CITB Site Safety Plus scheme and is taken by site managers who already hold a valid SMSTS certificate and need to keep it current.
The original SMSTS certificate is valid for 5 years. To stay certified you must complete the 2-day refresher before that certificate expires. There is no grace period: if your SMSTS certificate has already lapsed, the refresher is not available and you have to retake the full 5-day SMSTS course instead.
The refresher brings managers up to date with the latest changes in legislation, CITB guidance and industry best practice. It reinforces the core duties covered in the full course: the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, risk assessment, method statements and the management of safe systems of work. Supervisors who manage a team rather than a whole site renew through the 1-day SSSTS Refresher instead.
The renewed certificate is valid for a further 5 years.
The refresher is built around what has changed since you sat the full course. Legislation moves, CITB guidance is updated and industry practice shifts, and five years is long enough for all three to have drifted from what you were originally taught. Across the two days you review legal updates affecting site managers, revisit the CDM 2015 duties in practice, bring your risk assessment and method statement practice up to date, and look at behavioural safety, monitoring and incident reporting through the lens of current guidance. The days are discussion-led: you are in a room, physical or virtual, with other experienced managers, and much of the value is in comparing how different sites handle the same problems.
Like the full course, the refresher ends with a CITB assessment that you must pass to renew. It is shorter than the full SMSTS exam and assumes the working knowledge you have built since your original course, but it is a real assessment, not a formality, so treat the two days as working days rather than a box-ticking exercise.
The rule that catches managers out is simple: the refresher must be completed while your existing certificate is still valid. There is no grace period, and once the certificate has lapsed the only route back is the full 5-day SMSTS course, which costs more and takes a full week away from site. Contractors check expiry dates at induction, so a lapsed certificate can also mean being turned away from site at short notice.
The practical advice is to book two to three months before expiry. That leaves room to pick a date and format that suit your project, and margin to rebook if work forces a change of plan. Our guide to how long SMSTS lasts explains the five-year window, how to check the date on your certificate and what happens either side of expiry.
The refresher is available both in the classroom and as a live online course over Zoom or Microsoft Teams, with identical content, assessment and CITB certificate. Online renewal is popular with working managers because it removes travel from a two-day commitment, and dates run frequently, so there is rarely a reason to let a certificate lapse for want of a convenient course. Live dates and prices for both formats are at the top of this page.
Refresher prices vary by venue, date and format, and the price against each date at the top of this page is the full cost of a place, including the assessment and the renewed CITB certificate at most venues. Because the refresher is a Site Safety Plus course, CITB-registered employers can claim a short course grant when the delegate passes, with amounts set by CITB for each grant scheme year.
Employers renewing several managers at once, a common position when a company certificated a management team together five years ago, can request a group quote through our employer booking service. Booking the team onto one course keeps everyone on the same renewal cycle.
