CITB Managers and Professionals Study Guide 2026

The MAP test and your CSCS card

The Managers and Professionals (MAP) test is one of three versions of the CITB Health, Safety and Environment test. The others are Operatives and Specialists. CITB owns and runs the test.

CITB updated the test in June 2023. CSCS says new subjects included mental health, leadership, occupational health governance, behavioural safety, new technologies and improving legal compliance. CITB says the content is wide and not role specific.

Which cards need it

• The Black Manager card. You also need a construction management or technical qualification. The card is valid for five years.
• The Academically Qualified Person and Professionally Qualified Person cards.
• Your MAP pass must be from the two years before you apply.
• SMSTS is not accepted in place of the test for a CSCS card.

The legal framework

Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974

• Section 2: employers must ensure the health, safety and welfare of employees so far as is reasonably practicable. This includes safe plant and systems, safe handling of substances, information, instruction, training and supervision, and a safe workplace with welfare.
• Section 2(3): employers must prepare a written health and safety policy and arrangements, and revise it as needed.
• Section 3: employers must protect people who are not their employees, such as the public, from risks created by their work.
• Section 21: an inspector can serve an improvement notice that requires a breach to be put right within a set period.
• Section 37: if an offence happens with the consent, connivance or neglect of a director or manager, that person can be prosecuted as well as the company.

Risk assessment

Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. It covers employees and anyone else affected by the work.

• With five or more employees, record the significant findings.
• Review the assessment if it may no longer be valid or there has been a significant change.
• Before employing a young person, assess risks linked to their inexperience, immaturity and lack of awareness of risks.

CDM 2015: duty holders

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 set duties for everyone involved in a project. Under regulation 8, designers and contractors must have the skills, knowledge, experience and organisational capability for their role. They must not accept an appointment without them. Anyone making an appointment must take reasonable steps to check this.

Appointments

When more than one contractor will, or is likely to, work on a project, the client must appoint a principal designer and a principal contractor. Both appointments must be in writing, as soon as practicable and before the construction phase begins. If a client does not appoint them, the client must carry out those duties itself.

Domestic clients

When the client is a householder, their duties pass to the contractor, or to the principal contractor if there is more than one contractor. The principal designer can take them on instead under a written agreement.

CDM 2015: notification, plans and the file

Notification

Under regulation 6, a project is notifiable if the construction work is scheduled to:

• last longer than 30 working days and have more than 20 workers working at the same time at any point, or
• exceed 500 person days.

The client must notify HSE in writing as soon as practicable before the construction phase. The notice must be clearly displayed in the site office where workers can read it, and updated if needed.

Construction phase plan

The principal contractor draws up the plan before setting up the site. On a single-contractor job, that contractor does it. The plan sets out the health and safety arrangements and site rules, and it must be reviewed and updated as the work changes.

Health and safety file

The principal designer prepares the file during the pre-construction phase. It holds information needed to keep people safe during later work, such as maintenance, cleaning or demolition. Contractors supply information for it. At the end of the project, the file goes to the client.

Leadership, reporting and wellbeing

HSE's leadership guidance gives three essential principles:

1. Strong and active leadership from the top
2. Worker involvement
3. Assessment and review

It uses Plan, Do, Check, Act. Plan means setting a policy. Do means putting a resourced management system in place. Check means monitoring performance through routine reports and incident data. Act means reviewing and putting things right. The board should formally review performance at least once a year.

RIDDOR reporting

Report online. Phone reports are only for fatal accidents and specified injuries to workers.

Mental health and stress

HSE's Management Standards approach treats work-related stress like other risks. It starts by identifying the risk factors and ends by monitoring and reviewing the actions taken.

Occupational health and welfare

COSHH

The COSHH assessment steps are identify, assess, control, record and review. Record the assessment if you have five or more employees.

• Try to eliminate the substance or change the process first.
• Enclose the process where you can, and use local exhaust ventilation (LEV).
• LEV must be examined and tested by a competent person every 14 months.
• Do not jump straight to PPE. Use it when other controls cannot reduce exposure enough.
• Review after changes or after an incident or near miss.

Asbestos

Asbestos can be found in any building built before 2000. In non-domestic premises, the dutyholder must manage it. This may be the owner, the landlord or whoever is responsible for maintenance.

• Find out if asbestos is present, and presume a material contains it unless there is strong evidence it does not.
• Keep a register of its location and condition.
• Write and follow a management plan, and review it every 12 months or sooner.
• Tell anyone who may disturb it, including the emergency services.

Vibration and welfare

• Hand-arm vibration: action value 2.5 m/s² A(8), limit value 5.0 m/s² A(8).
• Welfare must be in place from the start of the construction phase.
• Flushing toilets are best. Portable chemical toilets are a last resort, with one for every 7 people working a 40-hour week.
• Dirty work such as demolition needs showers.

General safety: traffic, equipment and fire

Traffic management

HSE says most construction transport accidents come from poor separation of people and vehicles.

• Provide separate entrances and clear, firm walkways for pedestrians.
• Reduce reversing with one-way systems or turning circles.
• Signallers who direct vehicles must be trained and authorised.
• Where people cannot be kept out of reversing areas, improve visibility with mirrors, cameras, alarms, lighting and high-visibility clothing.

Work equipment (PUWER)

• Equipment must be suitable for the job and kept in a safe condition.
• Inspect equipment that could deteriorate dangerously, so faults are found in good time.
• Only people with adequate information, instruction and training may use it.
• Guard dangerous parts and provide clear controls and a way to isolate the power.

Fire

Regulation 32 of CDM 2015 requires suitable fire-fighting equipment and fire detection where needed. It must be checked and tested, easy to reach and marked with signs. Workers should be shown how to use it. Nobody may do work with a particular fire risk without suitable instruction.

High risk activities

Work at height

1. Avoid work at height where possible.
2. Where you cannot, use equipment or other measures to prevent falls.
3. Where a risk remains, reduce the distance and consequences of a fall, for example with nets.

• Ladders suit low-risk, short-duration work where a risk assessment shows better equipment cannot be used.
• A competent person inspects scaffolds. A non-scaffolder can inspect a basic scaffold after a suitable course.
• Tower scaffolds must be put up by people trained under a recognised scheme, following the maker's instructions.
• On fragile roofs, use edge protection and staging, with nets or a harness system.

Excavations

Regulation 22 of CDM 2015 requires all practicable steps, such as supports or battering, to stop collapse. Prevent people, equipment and materials falling in, and stop the ground being overloaded. A competent person inspects at the start of each shift and after any event that may affect stability.

Confined spaces

Avoid entry wherever possible. If entry is needed, assess the risks, such as lack of oxygen, fumes, flooding and fire. Plan rescue arrangements before work starts. Do not rely only on the emergency services.

Environment and waste

Section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 sets the waste duty of care. It applies to anyone who produces, keeps, carries, treats or disposes of controlled waste.

• Stop waste escaping from your control.
• Transfer waste only to an authorised person, such as a registered waste carrier.
• Give a written description of the waste with each transfer.
• Take reasonable steps to stop others dumping or handling it illegally.

Pollution and nuisance

• In England, report pollution of rivers, streams or canals to the Environment Agency's 24-hour incident hotline. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own reporting routes.
• Under section 61 of the Control of Pollution Act 1974, you can apply to the local authority for prior consent for construction noise. The application sets out the works, the methods and the steps to keep noise down.

Study tips for managers

• Use the CITB revision book, app or download, and try the CITB sample test.
• Learn the CDM duty holders and which documents each one produces.
• Make a list of key numbers: 30 working days, 20 workers, 500 person days, 10 and 15 days for RIDDOR, 14 months for LEV, 12 months for the asbestos plan.
• Think like a manager. Many questions ask what you should plan, check or arrange, not what an operative does.
• Aim for well above 90% on these practice sets, because the real pass mark is high.