Lotty Pritchard, Marketing Director at SIG UK Roofing, collects prize at BMN Awards
SIG Roofing has been working in partnership with SKCIN, the national skin cancer prevention charity, for the past two years, and this charitable work was recognised at the recent Builders Merchants News Awards, where it won the Health & Safety Initiative of 2025 category.
The award recognised the company’s commitment to raising awareness of skin cancer, in particular to male outdoor workers, who make up a significant portion of the SIG Roofing customer base. During the partnership, they have provided FREE training to help both staff and customers learn how to implement key skin cancer prevention measures and educate them on how to spot the vital early signs of the disease.
SIG Roofing began working with the SKCIN charity in 2024 having learned about its national Sun Safe Workplaces accreditation programme for employers of outdoor workers. As a result of their efforts, the business was awarded a certificate for completing the programme, having conducted training courses for its employees, across their national network of SIG Roofing branches. To promote sun safe practices to its customers SIG Roofing took on a multi-channel approach. News releases reached an audience of over 120,000 through trade publications, while social media activity generated over 17,000 impressions. The ‘Take a Squirt’ initative also saw free SPF50 sun cream stations install in all branches with education materials, merchandise, and in-store digital advertising. Most importantly, internal results have been transformational; post training, 0.9% of staff reported not pretecting their skin (down from 28.2%) and 74.8% could now identify skin cancer symptoms (up from 5.8%).
A survey conducted by the SIG Roofing business in 2024 highlighted the necessity for awareness training when it revealed that 95% of roofers reported experiencing repeated sunburn due to working outdoors–a leading cause of melanoma skin cancer. Additionally, 63% indicated that they never, rarely, or only sometimes use sunscreen, while nearly half admitted that they were unaware of how to check their skin for signs and symptoms of skin cancer.
Skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed and fastest-rising cancer in the UK and solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is responsible for an alarming 90% of all skin cancer cases, which puts outdoor workers at a significantly higher risk of developing the disease. Additionally, the predominance of males in the UK’s outdoor workforce raises further concerns, as statistics indicate that the incidence of skin cancer is increasing at twice the rate in men compared to women. Men are also 69% more likely to die from this disease.
Marie Tudor, CEO of SKCIN said: “It is great to see the outstanding commitment from SIG Roofing being rewarded as they continue to invest in vital awareness and training of both employees and customers. Over the past two years it has been a powerful force – driving much needed behavioural and attitudinal change that has the power to save lives”.