HSE Annual Fatality Statistics 2025/26: What the Numbers Tell UK Employers
The Health and Safety Executive has published its annual fatality statistics for 2025/26. 126 workers were killed in work-related incidents in Great Britain — a slight decrease from 128 the previous year. A further 104 members of the public lost their lives due to work-related activities.
The figures are sobering not because they represent a dramatic spike, but because they don't. Year after year, the same hazards account for the same pattern of deaths.
What the 2025/26 Statistics Show
Falls from height remained the leading cause of workplace fatality, accounting for 31 worker deaths — roughly a quarter of the total. Other significant causes included workers being struck by moving vehicles, struck by moving objects, and contact with moving machinery.
Construction recorded 25 worker deaths, down sharply from 35 in 2024/25 and 51 in 2023/24. That is a genuine and meaningful reduction.
Agriculture, forestry and fishing recorded 22 fatalities, with a fatal injury rate of 8.09 per 100,000 workers — more than 20 times the all-industry average of 0.37. The waste and recycling sector recorded a rate of 5.47 per 100,000 — over ten times the national average.
The Self-Employed Worker Problem
One detail in the construction figures that deserves attention: self-employed workers accounted for nearly half of all construction-related deaths over the past five years.
This is not a coincidence. Self-employed tradespeople — builders, roofers, scaffolders, contractors working alone or in small teams — frequently operate without the formal safety infrastructure that larger employers maintain. Risk assessments exist in their heads rather than on paper. Method statements from a previous job get reused without review. Nobody is checking that the controls are actually in place before the work starts.
The law does not exempt self-employed workers from the duty to manage risk. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 applies to sole traders as much as to any employer, where the work creates a risk to others or to themselves.
Known Hazards, Preventable Deaths
The HSE's summary of this year's statistics makes a point worth repeating:
"Many of the fatal incidents recorded each year arise from hazards that are already well understood by employers and workers alike. In many cases, the challenge is not identifying the risk but ensuring that appropriate control measures are implemented effectively, followed consistently and reviewed regularly."
That is the gap. Not knowledge of the hazard, but the system for managing it day to day.
What UK Employers Should Do Now
- Review your risk assessments against the specific hazards that appear year after year in HSE statistics: falls from height, moving vehicles, machinery contact.
- If you employ or subcontract self-employed workers, check that they have site-specific documentation in place before work begins.
- If you operate in agriculture, waste management, or construction, your sector's fatality rate means HSE scrutiny is proportionally higher. Make sure your systems are audit-ready.
RiskCompli lets businesses build and maintain site-specific risk assessments without starting from scratch each time. Try it free — no card needed: riskcompli.safecompli.co.uk
Visit www.safecompli.co.uk for more.
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