Andrew Cooper, Managing Director at Global HSE Group, outlines competency-led fire engineering, façade assessment programmes and the training pathways supporting safer, resilient buildings
Training and competency development sit at the heart of our consultancy work and form a key part of the Global HSE Group story, shaping how we serve clients and how we build internal capability.
Competency has become one of the defining issues in modern fire engineering and façade safety.
As regulatory expectations rise across the UK and internationally, the sector faces growing demand for professionals who can pair technical capability with sound judgement, consistent methodology and a clear understanding of risk.
Not just consultancy, everything we do is about improving standards of work and competency across the industry.
We place structured learning at the centre of our approach as a way to support consistent standards across projects.
We focus strongly on raising those standards through the Level 4 Fire Safety Design qualification, which supports professionals working in complex and high-risk environments.
Further programmes will follow as we build on this foundation.
On the façade side, our team in the UK has developed a high level of competency and that expertise creates clear opportunities to share knowledge into other markets, including the Middle East.
Competency is no longer a background requirement.
It is critical for building safety outcomes.
The Building Safety Act, PAS 9980 and the Scottish Single Building Assessment framework have placed façade performance under close scrutiny.
In Scotland, the introduction of the Single Building Assessment process has reinforced the need for consistent methodology, clear documentation and defensible professional judgement.
Current industry demand reflects this focus, as we are heavily engaged in single building assessments and Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls (FRAEWs).
One ambition is to recruit within the region so that capability grows locally as well as through visiting teams, allowing us to blend regional presence with targeted support.
Where travel makes sense we can bring our specialists into the Middle East and, where regional talent is available, we want to build capacity on the ground so the flow of expertise runs in both directions.
Façades have become a major part of our workload because of legislative change and rising expectations across the UK construction and housing sectors and our teams now deliver FRAEWs in line with the Building Safety Act and single building assessments within the Scottish framework.
Demand continues to increase and we see that trend extending across the next three to five years as building owners look for consistent and reliable guidance.
We currently lead many of these programmes across London and Scotland and plan to expand our team as the volume of projects grows, supported by professional indemnity cover for assessment, design and remediation activities that enables us to manage full façade lifecycles.
The insights from these projects carry direct relevance for other regions, including the UAE, where façade performance and cladding issues feature as part of a wider set of sector concerns.
Developing the Global Academy
Our training arm division, Global Academy, began as an internal vehicle to give our staff a clear route to the competency levels we expect across every division and over time we recognised the scale of the need for structured learning at Level 2 and Level 3, along with formal qualifications that match real roles in the field.
In response we are extending Global Academy into Level 2 pathways and establishing Global Skills Academy as part of our learning ecosystem.
The aim is to develop multi-skilled people across the fire sector trades, with joiners, technicians, passive fire specialists and fire door practitioners gaining a broader set of abilities rather than working within narrow task bands.
Many individuals currently work in isolation from adjacent trades, and qualification frameworks often fail to reflect the realities of modern passive fire installation or inspection.
For now, this training effort concentrates on our own teams.
Our response is to promote a more integrated approach and define qualification standards that reflect that mindset, creating learning that adds genuine value to careers and to the organisations that rely on these skills.
External delivery remains a future possibility as the programme matures.
Intersec Dubai 2026
Raising brand awareness and relationship building is one of our central aims going into Intersec 2026, with people coming together in Dubai from every direction and giving us a way to create opportunities and revenue in the UAE and the wider Middle East while also forming connections with visitors from across the world.
Intersec 2026 represents the most concentrated gathering of global fire safety thinking in the region and reveals the direction of travel for high-rise safety across the Middle East.
Intersec also strengthens ties with partners who already know us, raising our profile with UK exhibitors and with the UK expat community working in international roles.
Fire safety feels like a closely connected field and we use the event to develop leads, reinforce existing relationships and learn from peers in ways that influence how we structure our services.
The Middle East and beyond
Our outlook extends well beyond a single event cycle as we see a clear route to continued growth in the Middle East through partnerships, projects and, in time, training delivery.
Our collaboration with Connected Safety Net in Dubai already anchors us in the region and we are in discussion with several stakeholders around projects under consideration.
Our goal is not to replicate UK services directly but to adapt our expertise to local conditions, building capability through deployed teams and over time through local recruitment and training.
Global HSE Group already serves international clients and delivers work across several countries, with recent activity including projects in Norway, Finland, Germany and the United States.
This stream of work fluctuates over time, although we expect the overall trajectory to rise as we build a balanced portfolio that includes strong UK operations and a growing international footprint.