Workplace Injury Statistics UK: 2026 Facts & Data

Workplace injury statistics UK

HSE’s latest broad estimate is 680,000 workers sustaining a non-fatal workplace injury in Great Britain in 2024/25. A separate release records 126 workers killed in 2025/26, provisionally.

This guide covers England, Scotland and Wales. It distinguishes survey estimates from employer reports, and injury from ill health, so the totals and percentages are used with the correct population and year.

Reviewed 15 October 2026. HSE statistics cover Great Britain. Non-fatal injury and ill-health figures are for 2024/25 or the stated multi-year average; fatal figures are 2025/26 provisional. Cost estimates refer to 2023/24.

Key facts & figures (overview)

680,000 workers sustained a non-fatal injury in the 2024/25 LFS estimate.
126 workers were killed in 2025/26, provisional.
104 members of the public died in the 2025/26 accident series, subject to its exclusions.
1.9 million workers had work-related ill health, new or long-standing, in 2024/25.
40.1 million days were lost to work-related illness and injury in 2024/25.
£22.9 billion was the societal cost of injuries and new work-related ill health in 2023/24.
59,219 employee injuries were reported by employers under RIDDOR in 2024/25.
4.4 million days were lost specifically to workplace injuries in 2024/25.

How many people are injured at work each year?

The LFS estimate of 680,000 covers injuries of all severities, equivalent to 2,070 per 100,000 workers. HSE regards the survey as its preferred source for the broader scale of non-fatal injury.

Employers separately reported 59,219 non-fatal employee injuries under RIDDOR in 2024/25, a rate of 209 per 100,000 employees. Different criteria and coverage mean these totals cannot be treated as the same measure.

The most common causes of workplace injury

The following 2024/25 shares apply to RIDDOR non-fatal employee injuries, not to every injury in the LFS:

Same-level slips, trips and falls: 30%.
Handling, lifting or carrying: 17%.
Struck by a moving object: 10%.
Acts of violence: 10%.
Falls from height: 8%.

In the separate fatal series, falls from height caused 31 worker deaths in 2025/26, provisional.

Fatal workplace injuries in the UK

The provisional 2025/26 count is 126 worker deaths, compared with a revised 128 in 2024/25. The latest fatal-injury rate is 0.37 per 100,000 workers.

The leading kinds were falls from height (31), moving vehicles (24), moving objects (21), collapse or overturning (18) and moving machinery (10). A further 104 public deaths were recorded, excluding the specified CQC-led patient and service-user deaths in England.

Which industries are most dangerous?

Counts show where deaths occurred; rates allow for workforce size. Both tables use Great Britain’s 2025/26 provisional fatal data.

By number of fatalities, 2025/26 provisional

Sector	Worker deaths
Construction	25
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	22
Manufacturing	18
Transportation and storage	15
Wholesale/retail/motor repair; accommodation and food	11

By fatal injury rate, 2025/26 provisional

Sector	Deaths per 100,000 workers
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	8.09
Waste collection, treatment, disposal and materials recovery	5.47
Construction	1.23

These are annual rates, which can fluctuate. The all-industry rate was 0.37. Separately, LFS non-fatal injury rates averaged 2.5% in construction and 2.4% in transportation and storage over 2022/23–2024/25, against 1.8% overall.

Work-related ill health

Work-related illness is a separate measure from accident injury. In 2024/25, HSE estimated 1.9 million workers with new or long-standing work-related ill health.

This included 964,000 workers with stress, depression or anxiety and 511,000 with MSDs. MSDs represented 27% of ill-health cases. These conditions can be caused or aggravated by work; the figures do not establish one single cause for each case.

Working days lost to workplace injury and illness

An estimated 40.1 million working days were lost in 2024/25: 35.7 million to work-related ill health and 4.4 million to workplace injury.

Within ill health, MSDs accounted for 7.1 million days, about 14 days per case. These are survey estimates of absence, not counts of injuries, diagnoses or compensation claims.

The cost of workplace injuries to UK businesses

The latest HSE cost model estimates £22.9 billion for injuries and new work-related ill-health cases arising in 2023/24. Ill health accounts for £16.4 billion, around 72%; injury accounts for £6.5 billion, around 28%.

The societal total combines financial costs and effects on quality or length of life. It is shared across individuals, employers and government. It should not be described as an employer-only loss, manual-handling cost or annual compensation bill.

Workplace injuries: long-term trends

Worker fatalities fell from 495 in 1981 to 126 in 2025/26, provisional. HSE’s latest analysis describes a long-term decline in the fatal-injury rate, with the decline slowing in recent years.

For non-fatal injury, HSE describes the latest three annual LFS rates as similar to 2018/19. Sampling uncertainty and the effects of the pandemic mean a change in a single headline estimate does not establish a continuing upward trend.

How does the UK compare internationally?

International comparisons require aligned definitions, reporting coverage and years. Some systems count different workers, diseases or traffic incidents.

These HSE figures describe Great Britain. They do not by themselves establish a current worldwide safety ranking or the whole UK’s position.

Employer reporting vs. self-reporting: understanding the gap

The Labour Force Survey (LFS) estimates injuries of all severities, including cases that do not meet the RIDDOR reporting criteria. RIDDOR covers defined reportable incidents and, in the non-fatal employee series, is also affected by under-reporting. These sources measure different populations; subtracting one total from the other does not measure breaches of reporting law.

HSE estimates that employers report around half of non-fatal employee injuries meeting RIDDOR criteria. This is a separate finding from the difference between the LFS and reported totals.

Workplace injury law in the UK

Great Britain’s health and safety law requires employers to assess and control risks, with suitable equipment, information, instruction and supervision. Specific rules address manual handling, work at height, machinery and other hazards. Northern Ireland has separate legislation.

Report incidents under RIDDOR when the legal criteria are met. Internal reporting of hazards and near misses is useful for prevention, but not every injury or near miss requires a RIDDOR notification.

Reducing workplace injuries: what works

For employers

Identify the hazards in the actual work, eliminate unnecessary risks and implement suitable controls. Consult staff, provide practical instruction and check performance rather than relying on a completed course alone.

For workers

Use the agreed equipment and methods, report defects and seek help when a task cannot be done safely. Early reporting of symptoms and hazards gives the employer an opportunity to review the work.

Written by workplace safety experts

This guide was produced by the team at Manual Handling Training, a UK provider of RoSPA-approved and CPD-accredited online health and safety training. Our courses are used by businesses across construction, warehousing, healthcare, and logistics to meet their legal obligations and protect their people. Because workplace safety is what we do every day, we’re well placed to track the latest HSE data and present it clearly for employers, safety professionals, and workers alike.

Sources & references

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Mark McShane

Health & Safety Training Specialist, Online CPD Academy

Mark writes about workplace health & safety, manual handling and accredited online training for Manual Handling Training, part of Online CPD Academy.