The early warning is NEC4's best feature and its most ignored. Miss it and you can lose entitlement you were owed. Here's how to actually run the process.
NEC4 has one mechanism that, used properly, prevents more disputes than any other clause in the contract. It's not glamorous, it takes five minutes, and most contractors treat it as an afterthought — right up until the day it costs them money they were entitled to.
It's the early warning. And the reason it matters isn't just good project management: under NEC4, failing to give one when you should have can directly reduce what you recover on a compensation event. This is the rare clause that's both good practice and has teeth. Here's how it works and how to run it so it protects you.
Early warning is NEC4's forward-looking risk mechanism, set out in core clause 15. The principle is simple and genuinely sensible: if you can see a problem coming, tell the other side now, while there's still time to do something about it — rather than staying quiet and dealing with it once it's already hit.
Under clause 15.1, both the Contractor and the Project Manager have a duty to give an early warning as soon as either becomes aware of any matter which could:
The Contractor can also warn of anything that could increase their own total cost. The point is breadth: anything material that could go wrong on cost, time, key dates or performance is an early warning, and the duty runs both ways — this isn't just something the client does to you.
Once notified, matters go into the Early Warning Register — the document NEC4 uses to keep track of live risks and what's being done about them. (If you cut your teeth on NEC3, this is what used to be called the Risk Register; NEC4 renamed it and made it the Early Warning Register.)
The register isn't a filing exercise. It's a live list of the things that could hurt the project, each with the actions decided to deal with it and who's responsible. The Project Manager maintains it, but it only works if it reflects the warnings actually being raised — which is where the discipline comes in.
Raising the warning is step one. The value is realised in the meeting. Under clause 15.2, either the Contractor or the Project Manager can instruct the other to attend an early warning meeting (the old "risk reduction meeting"), and others can be invited if both agree.
The meeting has a defined job, and it's a collaborative one. Those attending cooperate in:
Then the Project Manager records the decisions and revises the Early Warning Register. That's the whole loop: spot it, notify it, meet, agree actions, record them, act. Done well, problems get solved while they're small and cheap, before they harden into delay and dispute.
This collaborative design is deliberate. NEC contracts are built on a stated spirit of mutual trust and cooperation, and the early warning is that spirit made practical. It's the contract giving you a structured way to solve problems together instead of building a paper trail to blame each other later.
Here's the part that turns early warning from "nice idea" into "do this every time." NEC4 doesn't just encourage early warnings — it penalises the failure to give them.
If a matter becomes a compensation event, and the Project Manager decides that the Contractor did not give an early warning that an experienced contractor could have given, then the compensation event is assessed as if the early warning had been given (clause 63.7). In plain terms: you're assessed on the basis that you flagged it in time and everyone had the chance to reduce its effect — even though you didn't. The cost and time you could have avoided by warning early, you don't recover. You carry it.
Read that again, because it's the whole reason to care. Silence can cost you entitlement. You can have a perfectly valid compensation event and still recover less than its true impact, purely because you didn't raise an early warning you could have. The five minutes it takes to notify is, quite literally, protecting money you're otherwise owed.
A crucial distinction that catches people out: an early warning is not the same as notifying a compensation event, and giving one doesn't replace the other. They're separate mechanisms with separate clauses and separate time bars.
So a matter often needs both: an early warning when you first see it coming, and a compensation event notification when (and if) it actually happens. Treating the early warning as "job done" and forgetting the compensation event notification is a classic and expensive mistake. Run them as two separate disciplines.
The mechanics are easy; the discipline is what's missing on most jobs.
1. Raise them early and freely. The test is "could an experienced contractor have seen this coming?" If yes, warn — even if you're not certain it'll bite. There's no penalty for a warning that comes to nothing; there's a real one for a warning you should have given and didn't. Err heavily toward notifying.
2. Put it in writing, promptly. "As soon as" means as soon as. A verbal heads-up on site isn't an early warning notice. Notify formally, dated, in the contract's manner, so there's no argument later about whether or when you raised it.
3. Keep the register live. It's a working document, not an annual tidy-up. New warning, into the register. Action agreed, recorded against it. Risk passed, closed off.
4. Use the meetings. Don't let early warnings pile up unaddressed. If a matter needs solving, get people in a room (or a call) and use the collaborative process the contract gives you. That's where the money's saved.
5. Keep early warnings and compensation events in step. Track which warnings have crystallised into events, and make sure the compensation event notifications go in on time. One process feeds the other; neither replaces it.
At Construction AI, early warnings and the Early Warning Register are managed alongside the programme and the compensation event and variation record — so a warning is raised, logged, dated and tracked through to whether it becomes an event, with the notifications kept in step and nothing quietly lost between the two. When the test later is "did an experienced contractor give the warning they could have," you've got the dated record proving you did — which is exactly the difference between recovering the full impact and carrying it yourself.
The early warning is the most valuable five minutes in NEC4. It solves problems while they're small, it's built on cooperation rather than confrontation, and — bluntly — it protects your entitlement in a way most contractors don't realise until it's too late. Raise them early, put them in writing, keep the register live, and never confuse an early warning with the compensation event notification that may need to follow it. The contractors who master this clause are the ones who quietly stay out of trouble.
What is an early warning under NEC4?
An early warning is a notice, given under core clause 15, that both the Contractor and Project Manager must issue as soon as they become aware of any matter that could increase the Prices, delay Completion, delay a Key Date, or impair the performance of the works in use. It lets risks be managed before they materialise.
What is the NEC4 Early Warning Register?
The Early Warning Register is the live document listing notified early-warning matters and the actions decided to deal with them. It was called the Risk Register under NEC3; NEC4 renamed it. The Project Manager maintains it.
What happens if you don't give an early warning under NEC4?
If a matter becomes a compensation event and the Project Manager decides the Contractor failed to give an early warning that an experienced contractor could have given, the event is assessed as if the warning had been given (clause 63.7). The Contractor may then recover less than the event's true impact.
Is an early warning the same as a compensation event notification?
No. An early warning flags a risk that might occur so it can be managed; a compensation event notification claims time and money once an event has actually happened and has its own strict time limits. A matter often needs both — they're separate processes.
Who can raise an early warning?
Both the Contractor and the Project Manager have a duty to raise early warnings. Either party can also instruct the other to attend an early warning meeting to agree how to avoid or reduce the effect of a notified matter.
Stephen Mckenna MCIOB
30+ years in UK commercial construction, from site management to director level. Now building the project management tools he wished he'd had.
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