1.9 million
working people with a work-related illness
2024/25HSE
The short answer. In Great Britain, HSE reports 1.9 million working people suffering from a work-related illness and 680,000 sustaining an injury at work in 2024/25, costing 40.1 million working days. HSE estimates the cost to Great Britain at £22.9 billion a year. Stress, depression and anxiety is the single largest category of work-related ill health, at 964,000 people.
Every figure in these workplace safety statistics comes from the Health and Safety Executive, labelled with the reporting year HSE published it under. The training that answers them is in the health and safety courses. Where HSE has stopped publishing a measure, we leave it out instead of estimating it.
The headline workplace safety statistics
Great Britain, most recent year published for each measure.
Who is affected
Working people in Great Britain, most recent year published.
The scale, side by side
All four bars share one scale, so you can compare them directly. However, the two indented bars are part of the illness figure above them.
Source: HSE, 2024/25. Illness and injury figures are from the Labour Force Survey and are therefore self-reported.
What these workplace safety statistics actually say
Ill health is a bigger problem than accidents
1.9 million people report a work-related illness against 680,000 reporting an injury. Training that only covers physical hazards therefore addresses the smaller half.
Mental health leads it
At 964,000, stress, depression and anxiety is larger than musculoskeletal disorders at 511,000. That is a management and training issue as much as a clinical one.
The cost is not the fine
£22.9 billion is the estimated cost of injuries and ill health from current working conditions. In practice, for one employer the visible cost is absence, cover, turnover and insurance, long before anything reaches enforcement.
A note on what is missing
HSE no longer publishes enforcement statistics as part of its annual release, so this page quotes no figure for them. As a result, any average fine for 2026 is an estimate.
What the law actually says
Two legal duties sit behind these workplace safety statistics, and this site sets out what UK law requires in full. Both quotations are the operative words exactly as published on legislation.gov.uk.
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 duty extends to “the provision of such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of his employees”
Training must “be repeated periodically where appropriate”
What getting it wrong costs
A court sets a fine from your turnover, with no fixed tariff, and there is no upper limit, whichever court hears the case. These are the starting points a court works from for the most serious category the guideline defines, very high culpability and harm category 1. This is the top of the scale, so most cases sit below it.
| Organisation | Starting point | Category range |
|---|---|---|
| MicroTurnover up to £2 million | £250,000 | £150,000 to £450,000 |
| SmallTurnover £2 million to £10 million | £450,000 | £300,000 to £1.6 million |
| MediumTurnover £10 million to £50 million | £1.6 million | £1 million to £4 million |
| LargeTurnover £50 million and over | £4 million | £2.6 million to £10 million |
Source: Sentencing Council, Health and Safety Offences, Corporate Manslaughter and Food Safety and Hygiene Offences Definitive Guideline, in force since 1 February 2016. Read the guideline. The fine is only part of it: costs, remedial work, insurance and lost time usually outlast it.
The workplace safety statistics in full
| Measure | Figure | Reporting year | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working people with a work-related illness | 1.9 million | 2024/25 | HSE |
| With work-related stress, depression or anxiety | 964,000 | 2024/25 | HSE |
| Who sustained an injury at work | 680,000 | 2024/25 | HSE |
| With a work-related musculoskeletal disorder | 511,000 | 2024/25 | HSE |
| Working days lost to illness and injury | 40.1 million | 2024/25 | HSE |
| Estimated annual cost to Great Britain | £22.9 billion | 2023/24 | HSE |
| Workers killed in work-related accidents | 126 | 2025/26 | HSE |
Cite this page
Using these figures in a report, a tender or an article? Then copy the credit below. The underlying data belongs to HSE, so it needs a credit to them too.
ProCompliance, “UK workplace health and safety statistics”, citing Health and Safety Executive figures. Available at: https://procompliance.co.uk/workplace-safety-statistics/.
Common questions
How many people are injured at work in the UK each year?
In Great Britain, 680,000 working people sustained an injury at work in 2024/25 according to the Labour Force Survey, as reported by HSE. That is self-reported and therefore larger than the number of injuries formally reported to regulators under RIDDOR.
How many working days are lost to work-related illness and injury?
40.1 million working days in 2024/25. Ill health accounts for the large majority of those, while accidents account for the rest.
What is the most common work-related illness?
Stress, depression or anxiety, affecting 964,000 working people in 2024/25. Musculoskeletal disorders are second at 511,000.
Is compliance training legally required in the UK?
Yes, for most employers. Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 places a duty on every employer to provide the information, instruction, training and supervision necessary to ensure employees' health and safety, so far as is reasonably practicable. Specific regulations also add their own training duties on top: manual handling, COSHH, fire safety, display screen equipment and others each carry one.
How often should compliance training be refreshed?
There is no single legal interval. The duty is to keep training adequate, which in practice means refreshing when the law changes, when the risk changes, when someone changes role, and otherwise on a cycle you can defend. Annual is the common choice for high-risk topics; two to three years is typical for lower-risk awareness subjects.
Where this leaves an employer
Above all, these workplace safety statistics make the case for training that people actually complete. Selected courses are IOSH approved or CPD accredited as stated on each course page, and completion is recorded automatically so the evidence exists before anyone asks for it.
Sources: Health and Safety Executive, key figures for Great Britain and costs to Britain of workplace injuries and ill health. This page quotes figures as HSE published them. ProCompliance Services Ltd maintains this page.