LABOUR-ONLY SUBCONTRACTING
Labour Supply & Labour-Only Subcontracting for European Projects
To UK and Irish contractors, this is labour-only subcontracting: you hold the main contract and provide materials and plant; we provide the certified crew and its supervision. Elsewhere in Europe the same service goes by labour supply or personnel leasing. Whatever it’s called on your site, the model is the same — Metal KLS crews, never lone workers, with cross-border compliance handled by us.
Supervised installation teams
For erection, cladding and rigging work, most clients are not looking for loose labour — they are looking for a crew that completes the work package. We supply a team of tradespeople led by an experienced foreman, or accompanied by one of our site supervisors. You assign the scope and hold the higher-level management; the team delivers against your programme and reports into your site organisation.
In practice this reads to the client as an erection service, without transferring main-contract responsibility.
Steel erectors
Main steel and secondary steel erection, interior steelworks and metal fit-outs, placement of gratings and guardrails, and standalone steel structures. Our erectors work from your drawings and at height, on projects ranging from data center shells to industrial platforms and production facilities.
Cladding fitters
Installation of roof and wall cladding — trapezoidal sheet metal, sandwich panels, flashings and detail work. Weathertight building envelopes delivered to programme.Riggers
Lifting, slinging and rigging for heavy and complex installation work, including offshore and marine environments. Our riggers delivered the offshore erection phase of the temporary supporting structure for the central pylon of the New Storstrøm Bridge, and are currently deployed on a major Baltic offshore wind development.
Offshore work carries its own safety regimes, weather windows and lifting sequences. Our riggers are used to working inside them.
Skilled trades on hourly hire
For welding, assembly and painting, work is contracted as labour supply at an agreed hourly rate — but never as lone workers. We deploy in teams of two or more, working under your supervision in your production facility or on site, with posting compliance for the country of work handled by us.
Welders and assemblers
Certified welders and assemblers for in-house production and for on-site installation. Road and rail bridge projects in particular require welding and assembly carried out in place, in the open and under load — work that suits these crews well.
EN ISO 9606 welder qualifications are provided on request, together with references from work delivered up to EN 1090 execution class EXC3.
Painters
Surface preparation and protective coating, deployed on the same scopes and sites as our welding and assembly teams: fabrication shops, bridge structures, and structural steelwork requiring corrosion protection.Construction machine operators
Our operators usually deploy as part of a crew — a crane or telehandler operator embedded in an erection or rigging team, keeping the lift sequence in one pair of hands from hook to bolt-up. Standalone operator placements are possible for longer assignments, but the embedded crew is our standard model. Every operator holds a valid licence for their machine class, accepted in the country of work.
Crane operators
Mobile and tower crane operation for steel erection, heavy lifts and installation sequences. Our crane operators regularly work alongside our own erection and rigging crews, which shows in how they read a lift plan.Telehandler operators
Material handling and load placement on structural and cladding sites — feeding erection crews, moving panels and packs, and working at reach around live workfaces.Forklift operators
Loading, unloading and site logistics, from laydown areas and warehouses to production facilities. Deployed individually or as part of a larger crew.
Excavator operators
Groundworks support, foundation excavation and material movement on construction and industrial sites.
What we take care of
Hiring across borders creates administrative work. We absorb it.
- A1 certificates and posted-worker notifications — prepared and filed by us for every deployment
- Payroll compliance in the country of posting
- Accommodation and travel — arranged by Metal KLS and included in the quoted rate, unless you prefer them excluded
- Personal protective equipment and hand tools — supplied by us as standard
- VCA/SCC certification across all trades
- Trade qualifications — welding certificates, working-at-height, rigging and slinging tickets, available on file
Where we work, and how fast
We deploy across Europe, with an established presence in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden. Our people have worked on data centers, road and rail bridges, offshore wind, petrochemical and industrial plants, battery and production facilities, and logistics hubs.
Standard mobilization is four weeks from confirmed order — complete teams, with documentation, accommodation and equipment in place before the first shift. Where crews are already working nearby, we have put people on site in one to two weeks.
See our Projects page for where our crews have been working.
Tell us what you need
Send us the trade, the location and the dates. We will come back with availability, the certifications we hold on file, and a rate.
We usually respond within 2 business days. If you still don’t hear from us, please use one of our contact details above. We are available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. CET (excluding public holidays). Feel free to insist!
Looking for something else?
- Supervision only — if you need a site manager or supervisor rather than a crew, see Site Management.
- A contracted scope — if you would rather hand over a defined package than staff it, see Steel Structure Erection and Roof and Wall Cladding Installation.