How Many Fire Marshals Does My Business Need?

If you're asking "how many fire marshals does my business need", you're already doing the responsible thing. Plenty of business owners assume one trained person covers it. Sometimes it does. Often it doesn't, and the gap only shows up on the day of a real evacuation.

The honest answer depends on your building and your people. How many floors you have, how many staff, how they're spread across shifts and sites, and how much risk your work carries all shape the number. We help businesses across Cheshire and the North West work this out every week, and it's rarely as complicated as people fear.

This guide gives you everything you need to arrive at your own figure. We'll walk through what the law actually requires, the ratios that matter, a worked table by business size, and a simple step-by-step you can follow today. When you're ready to get your team trained, our on-site fire marshal training takes half a day and leaves you covered.

What the Law Says

Fire safety in England and Wales is governed by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, usually shortened to the RRO 2005 or the Fire Safety Order. It pulled a patchwork of older fire laws under one roof.

Here is what matters for working out your numbers.

• The RRO 2005 applies to all non-domestic premises — offices, shops, warehouses, pubs, salons, workshops, and the shared areas of residential buildings.
• There is no minimum employee count. Even a business with a single member of staff falls under the law.
• The "responsible person" (usually the employer, building owner, or whoever controls the premises) must appoint "one or more competent persons" to help carry out fire safety measures. In plain terms, that means trained fire marshals.
• Since October 2023, a written fire risk assessment has been mandatory for all regulated premises. It's no longer enough to have done one "in your head."

Notice what the law does not do: it doesn't hand you a single fixed number. Instead it asks you to appoint enough competent people, and your written fire risk assessment is where the exact figure for your premises gets recorded. The government's fire safety guidance on GOV.UK is the official starting point if you want to read the detail, and the HSE’s introduction to fire safety covers the workplace duties in plain terms.

So the practical question isn't "does the law give me a number" — it's "how do I work out the right number for my building and my people". That's what the rest of this guide does.

The Ratios That Matter

There's no single legal figure, but there are widely used rules of thumb that assessors, insurers, and fire officers all recognise. Start here, then adjust for your circumstances.

One Fire Marshal Per Floor

The standard recommendation is at least one fire marshal per floor. Someone needs to be able to sweep each level, check nobody is left behind, and confirm it's clear. A three-storey building needs at least three trained people for that reason alone.

One Fire Marshal Per 50 Employees

The other common guideline is one fire marshal for every 50 employees. Where the two rules disagree, use whichever gives you greater coverage. A single open-plan floor with 120 people needs more than one marshal, even though it's only one floor.

Cover Every Shift

This is the factor businesses most often miss. Your cover has to hold up on every shift, including evenings and weekends. A fire marshal who works nine to five does nothing for the team on the late shift. If you trade outside standard hours, each of those periods needs its own trained people on site.

Higher-Risk Premises Need More

The baseline ratios assume a fairly ordinary workplace. If your premises carry extra risk — a commercial kitchen, a workshop, storage of flammable materials, or occupants who would need help to evacuate — you should plan for more fire marshals than the minimum. Your fire risk assessment should say so explicitly.

Every Site Needs Its Own Marshals

Fire marshal cover is per location, not per company. A marshal based at head office cannot cover a satellite site 20 miles away. If you operate across multiple sites, each one needs its own trained people, worked out on its own floors, headcount, and risk.

Build In Holiday and Sickness Cover

If your only trained marshal is on holiday or off sick when an incident happens, you have a gap. Train a backup for every marshal you actually need so absences don't leave the building uncovered. It's the step that separates businesses that are technically compliant from businesses that are genuinely covered.

Fire Marshals by Business Size

Here's a practical breakdown that applies the ratios above to typical premises. Treat it as a starting point, then adjust for your own risk level and working patterns.

Premises & team	Suggested minimum fire marshals	What's driving the number
Single-floor office, 12 staff, one shift	2	One lead marshal plus one backup for holiday and sickness cover
Two-floor premises, 30 staff, one shift	3–4	One per floor, plus a backup so a floor is never left uncovered
Three-storey office, 80 staff, two shifts	6+	One per floor on each shift, plus cover for absences
Higher-risk unit (kitchen or workshop), 20 staff	3+	Raised above the baseline because the extra risk demands it
Two sites, ~25 staff at each	4+	Each site counts separately, with a backup at each location

These are sensible minimums, not maximums. Many businesses train a couple of extra people as a buffer — a small investment against the cost of being caught short when someone's off. Your written fire risk assessment should record the exact figure and the reasoning behind it.

Fire Marshal vs Fire Warden

This is one of the most common questions we get, and the answer is simpler than people expect.

• In most businesses, "fire marshal" and "fire warden" mean the same thing. The law draws no distinction between the two titles.
• Some larger organisations use "fire warden" for staff with basic fire awareness and "fire marshal" for the person who actively leads the evacuation and hands over to the fire service. That's an internal convention, not a legal one.
• For compliance, what matters is that you have competent, trained people who can manage fire safety on site. The job title is secondary.

If you've been searching for fire warden training, you're looking for exactly the same course content. Don't let the terminology change your numbers — count the role, not the label.

How to Work Out Your Number

Ready to arrive at a figure you can defend? Follow these six steps.

1. Map your building. Count the floors and note the layout of each site. One marshal per floor is your baseline.
2. Count your people per site. Include everyone regularly on the premises — part-time staff, contractors, and regular visitors all count. Apply one marshal per 50 employees and take whichever figure is higher.
3. Map your shifts and opening hours. Write down every shift and every period you trade, including evenings and weekends. Each one needs its own cover.
4. Factor in your risk level. If you run a kitchen, workshop, or store flammable materials, or you have occupants who need help to evacuate, raise the numbers above the baseline.
5. Add a buffer. Plan at least one backup per marshal you need, so holidays and sickness never leave a gap.
6. Write it down. Record the final figure and your reasoning in your fire risk assessment. If a fire officer or insurer asks, that document is the first thing they'll want to see.

Work through those six steps and you'll have a number you can stand behind, along with the reasoning to back it up. If you'd rather sanity-check it with someone, that's what we're here for — and once you know your number, getting the team trained is the easy part.

Getting Your Fire Marshals Trained

This is the straightforward part. At Goostrey Business Solutions we deliver one clear fire marshal course to businesses across Cheshire and the North West, and we come to you, so nobody loses a day off-site.

• Half-day, on-site training. Around three to four hours at your own premises, so your team trains using the real escape routes and assembly points they'd use for real.
• Delivered by ex-fire-service trainers. Grounded in the job rather than read off a slide deck.
• Certificate of completion issued on the day. Every delegate leaves with evidence for your fire file, there and then.
• The full marshal role, covered. The course covers fire science, fire prevention, evacuation procedures, the fire marshal's role, working with the fire service, and which extinguisher suits which fire — the theory of matching the right extinguisher to the right type of fire.

Our course is non-accredited by design, and that works in your favour. Fire marshal training doesn't need an awarding-body badge to be valid — the law asks for competent, trained people, not a certificate in the post. Because our course isn't tied to an external scheme, your team meets its legal duty on the day: no exam to wait on, no certificate arriving weeks later, and no extra cost bolted on for paperwork you don't need.

Pricing starts from £395 per in-house group (up to 6 people) and £495 for 7 to 12, with larger groups tailored to suit. There's no VAT to add, as GBS isn't VAT-registered. The quickest way to get your exact figure is to run your group size through our quote wizard — you'll see the price on screen in under a minute. If you'd like the background on the rules first, our guide on whether you really need fire marshal training covers the legal side in full.