Waking Watch Service and Fire Safety Cover

What is a waking watch?

A waking watch is a team of trained officers who patrol a building continuously to detect fire early and alert everyone inside. It is an interim fire-safety measure used when a building’s passive or active fire protection is not fully reliable, for example where cladding or compartmentation defects have been found or a fire alarm is out of service. Patrols run around the clock until the underlying problem is fixed.

When do you need a waking watch?

You need a waking watch when a fire risk assessment, a fire engineer or the local fire and rescue authority decides a building cannot safely rely on its existing fire-safety systems. Common triggers include unsafe cladding or missing fire breaks identified after Grenfell, a “simultaneous evacuation” strategy replacing “stay put”, a fire-detection system that has failed or been taken offline, and hot works or other higher-risk activity on a construction site.

In residential blocks the requirement usually sits with the responsible person under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and the Building Safety Act 2022. We work to National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) guidance and support any notice issued by your fire authority.

How much does a waking watch cost?

According to the then-MHCLG’s 2020 national survey — still the only UK-wide dataset on waking-watch costs — the median cost of a waking watch was £11,361 per block per month, with hourly rates for individual officers ranging from £12 to £30 (median £13.99). The same research found that the cost of employing one person on waking-watch duties exceeds the average cost of installing a common fire alarm system within three to six months, which is why most buildings treat waking watch as an interim measure while an alarm is installed.

The cost of a waking watch depends on how many officers the building needs, how often the fire risk assessment requires patrols, the hours of cover (usually 24 hours a day, every day) and how long the measure has to run. Because it is charged by staffed hours, a waking watch is expensive to maintain over months, which is exactly why fire authorities and the NFCC treat it as a short-term measure and encourage moving to a common fire alarm as soon as it is practical.

Where a building qualifies, government funding may cover installation of a common fire alarm, removing the ongoing waking-watch cost. The Waking Watch Replacement Fund was succeeded by the Interim Measures Alarm Fund in July 2025, so confirm which scheme currently applies before you budget. We give a clear per-site quote after a short assessment, and where it helps we advise on the transition from a waking watch to an alarm so you are not paying for staffed cover longer than you need to.

How Ashridge delivers a waking watch

We start with a short site assessment to confirm the patrol routes, frequency and number of officers your fire strategy requires. We then deploy fire-trained, fire-marshal certified officers who patrol continuously, check fire doors, escape routes and high-risk areas, and raise the alarm and assist evacuation if a fire is found.

Every round is logged with time, location and observations, giving fire risk assessors and your fire authority an auditable record. Our 24/7 control room supports each site, and where a common alarm is being installed we help manage the handover so cover is never interrupted.

Who carries out the patrols, and what are they trained in?

A waking watch is a fire-safety service, not a security one. Most providers lead with SIA licensing, which is a security guarding qualification. We recruit and train for what the job actually calls on: spotting a fire early, getting people out, and looking after residents while it happens.

Every officer we place on a waking watch first completes a site induction covering that building’s own fire evacuation procedure, and we re-test it regularly rather than signing it off once. Each officer also holds:

• Fire Marshal Training (certified)
• Fire Safety Awareness (certified)
• Fire Extinguisher Use (certified)
• First Aid at Work
• Health and Safety in the Workplace Level 2 (VTQ)
• Risk Assessment Awareness (certified)
• Asbestos Awareness (certified)
• Lone Working (certified)
• Safeguarding of Children (Child Protection) Level 2 (VTQ)
• Safeguarding of Vulnerable Adults (SOVA) Level 2

The last four earn their place. An officer on a night patrol is working alone in a building where people are asleep in their own homes, some of them children and some of them vulnerable, and many buildings under a waking watch are mid-remediation with asbestos on site. We are there so residents can carry on living their lives safely, and we train for that rather than treating the building as an asset to be guarded.

Buildings and sectors we cover

We provide waking watch across high-rise and medium-rise residential blocks, student and key-worker accommodation, mixed-use developments, care and supported-living settings, and construction and refurbishment sites. Cover is available nationwide from our Buckinghamshire base, including London and the major cities where cladding-affected buildings are concentrated. You can see the areas we cover or read plain-English definitions in our security and fire-safety glossary.

Who pays for a waking watch?

Responsibility for waking-watch costs has changed significantly under the Building Safety Act 2022. For qualifying leaseholders, the Act caps what can be recovered towards non-cladding defects at £15,000 in Greater London and £10,000 elsewhere, with lower-value properties exempt entirely. Since 31 October 2024 a waking watch has been classified as a “relevant measure” under Schedule 8 of the Act, which means its cost can be included in a Remediation Contribution Order and recovered from the parties responsible for the defects rather than from leaseholders. The First-tier Tribunal took that approach in Triathlon Homes v Stratford Village Development Partnership.

If you are not certain who should be carrying the cost, take advice before committing to a long-term contract. The answer often changes the commercial picture, and it is a question we are asked on almost every enquiry.

Where we provide waking watch

We deploy waking watch across mainland UK from our Buckinghamshire base. Demand is heaviest where 11-metre-plus buildings with cladding defects are concentrated, so most of our fire-safety work sits in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Bristol, Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire. Mobilisation is typically within 24 hours of instruction anywhere on that list, and often the same day where a fire and rescue authority has issued a notice.

Each area page sets out the sectors we work in locally and the other services we run alongside fire-safety cover, including manned guarding and mobile patrols.

Further reading on waking watch

• Waking watch requirements: a guide for property managers and developers
• What is a waking watch? A plain-English explainer
• Waking watch cost vs risk