Hoist Operators on Construction Sites: Operating It and Erecting It Are Different Licences

On a multi-storey build, the hoist is the spine. Every trade, every pallet of materials and a good share of the programme runs through it. And yet “hoist operator” is one of the least clearly understood roles on an Australian site — including by the people booking one.

The single most useful thing to understand is this: operating a hoist and erecting a hoist are two different licences. Getting that wrong is how sites end up with a competent operator and nobody legally able to put the thing up.

What a construction hoist is

WorkSafe Queensland defines it plainly: a materials or personnel hoist is used to hoist personnel, goods and/or materials. It comprises a car, structure, machinery or other equipment associated with the hoist, and may be either a cantilever hoist, tower hoist or a multiple winch operation. The definition also captures winches configured to operate as hoists for carrying personnel.

In practice you’ll meet two families on site:

• Materials hoists — goods only. No one rides. Often a cantilevered platform hung off the structure or scaffold.
• Personnel and materials hoists — the tower-mounted car that carries people and loads. This is the one that becomes the building’s lift while it’s being built.

The two licence classes

Safe Work Australia’s national list of high risk work licence classes contains both:

• HM — materials hoist: use of a materials hoist. In Queensland this class is titled “materials hoist with cantilever platform”.
• HP — personnel and materials hoist: use of a personnel and materials hoist.

HP is the broader of the two, because the moment people are being carried the consequences of a failure change completely. WorkSafe Queensland also notes you may need an HP licence if you are working on lifts and escalators.

There’s a threshold worth knowing at the small end: basic scaffolding covers cantilevered materials hoists with a maximum working load of 500 kilograms. Below that line it sits inside the scaffolding ticket rather than being its own hoist class.

Now the part people get wrong: who erects it

Putting the hoist up, climbing it as the building rises, and taking it down are rigging work, not operating work. Safe Work Australia’s rigging classes make the progression explicit:

• Basic rigging covers rigging work involving hoists (alongside structural steel erection, precast members, safety nets and static lines, mast climbing work platforms, and cantilevered crane loading platforms).
• Intermediate rigging covers hoists with jibs and self-climbing hoists.
• Advanced rigging covers cantilevered hoists.

So a self-climbing personnel hoist — exactly the kind on a typical apartment build — needs someone with intermediate rigging to climb it, and someone with HP to run it. Those can be the same person. Very often they are not, and the programme assumes they are.

WorkSafe Queensland closes the loop from the other direction: you don’t need the HRW operating licence when you are setting up or dismantling a crane or hoist and you hold the appropriate rigging licence. The rigger erecting it isn’t required to hold HP to do that work — and equally, holding HP doesn’t authorise them to erect it.

What the job actually involves

A hoist operator on a live site is running a piece of shared infrastructure, and most of the skill is in the scheduling, not the levers:

• Pre-start and daily checks — gates and interlocks, emergency stop, overload device, limit switches, landing gates on every level, cables and rack-and-pinion condition, and the logbook.
• Loading discipline — load within rated capacity, distributed properly, restrained, nothing protruding past the car.
• Landing control — gates closed and secured, the gap at each landing managed, no one reaching into the shaft.
• Traffic management — deciding who goes up next when three trades all need the hoist at 7am. This is where a good operator saves a site more time than anyone notices.
• Communication — radio to the landings, clear protocols, and the authority to stop.
• Weather and shutdown — wind limits are real and the operator applies them.
• Isolation and handover — securing the hoist at end of shift so it can’t be used by someone without a ticket.

The ability to say “not until that gate is fixed” is a core part of the job, not an obstacle to it.

Getting the ticket

HM and HP are high risk work licences, so the path is the standard one: training and assessment with a registered training organisation against the National Assessment Instrument, then an application to your state regulator with the assessment paperwork and photo ID. High risk work licences are recognised across every state and territory and run for five years before renewal.

That five-year national licence is a useful contrast with road-work tickets, which are shorter and state-bound — we covered that in our piece on whether traffic control tickets expire. A White Card is required before site access either way.

If you’re already rigging or scaffolding, HM or HP is a natural next rung — and if you’re already operating, basic or intermediate rigging is the one that makes you hard to replace on a high-rise.

What to ask before you book one

Four questions cover most of the risk:

1. Is the hoist personnel-rated or materials only? That decides HP versus HM before anything else.
2. Is it self-climbing or cantilevered? That decides which rigging class you need on site for erection and climbing — intermediate for self-climbing, advanced for cantilevered.
3. Do you have both roles covered, or only the operator? The most common gap is a booked operator and no rigger for the next climb.
4. Can the licence be verified? Queensland publishes a high risk work online register, so you can check rather than accept a photocopy.

And as with any plant: the business with management or control of the plant carries the duty to ensure operators are competent, whatever the licence position says.

Where DL Aus Group fits

We supply hoist operators, riggers and the rest of a skilled construction workforce to builders across QLD, NSW, VIC & WA, and have since 2019. We check the licence class against the hoist type and the work — operating and erecting are booked as the separate roles they are. Labour hire licences: Queensland LHL-04372-G3F0N, Victoria VICLHL03363.

Got a hoist going up on your next job? Tell us the type and the programme. Want to operate one? Register with us.

No minimum contract — book one worker for a single shift or a full crew for the length of the job. Need someone on site today? Call +61 415 540 088; same-day starts are available when you ring through your request.

Official sources

• Safe Work Australia — High risk work licence classes
• WorkSafe Queensland — Personnel and materials hoist (HP)
• WorkSafe Queensland — When don’t I need a licence?

This article explains publicly available regulator requirements as at September 2026. Requirements differ between states and change over time — check with the regulator in the state the work is in before you rely on it.