Insights · August 2026 · 5 minute read
The NEC4 early warning clock: five things most site teams miss.
On an NEC4 contract, a compensation event notified late can be lost. The early warning (clause 15) is where the chain starts, and it is where the money leaks. Here are five things site and commercial teams routinely miss.
1. The clock starts when the Contractor became aware
Not when the Project Manager was told. The eight-week window for notifying a compensation event (clause 61.3) runs from the Contractor becoming aware of the event. A gap between a site manager seeing a problem and the contracts team hearing about it is entitlement quietly draining away.
2. Either party can give the early warning
It is not a Contractor-only duty. Clause 15.1 places it on both the Contractor and the Project Manager, and refusing to raise one from your own side leaves the spirit of mutual trust and co-operation (clause 10.2) on the floor. A raised early warning protects both parties.
3. The risk reduction meeting is the part teams skip
The early warning is the notice. The risk reduction meeting (clauses 15.2 to 15.4) is where the mitigation is decided and minuted, and it is recorded in the Early Warning Register, the NEC4 successor to the old Risk Register. No minute, no audit trail, and the decision that could have saved the programme was never recorded.
4. The reply clock is the Project Manager's, not yours
The period for reply (clause 13.3) is a separate clock, set in the Contract Data and often two weeks. Stack a slow reply against the eight-week notification window and a genuine entitlement can fall off both ends. Track both, not one.
5. Z-clauses move the window
Read the Contract Data, part two, before you assume the standard periods apply. Bespoke Z-clauses routinely shorten a window, and the one you did not read is the one that costs you.
The point
None of this needs software to get right. It needs the notice to reach the contracts team while the clock is still running. It is an information problem before it is a legal one, and it is solved by the people on site knowing what to raise, and to whom, on the day they see it.