Older Workers and Workplace Safety: What UK Employers Are Missing
The HSE's annual fatality statistics for 2025/26 contain a figure that deserves more attention than it has received: 40 of the 126 workers killed at work last year were aged 60 or over.
Workers in this age group account for around 12% of the UK workforce. Their share of workplace fatalities is disproportionately higher.
Why This Is Not Surprising — and Why It Still Gets Overlooked
The UK workforce is ageing. The proportion of workers over 60 has grown steadily over the past two decades, driven by changes to pension age, cost of living pressures, and demographic shifts. Many workers in physically demanding trades continue into their 60s and beyond.
What hasn't always kept pace is the risk assessment process. A risk assessment completed when a worker was 40 does not automatically account for how their capability or risk profile may have changed by the time they are 65.
This is not a question of whether older workers are less competent. Experienced tradespeople bring knowledge and judgement that younger workers often lack. But physical parameters — balance, reaction time, muscle strength, vision — can change gradually and without obvious external signs. A working method that was perfectly safe for a 45-year-old may carry meaningfully different risk for the same person twenty years later.
What the Law Requires
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to assess the risks posed by their work, taking into account factors that affect the likelihood or severity of harm. Individual characteristics, including age, are explicitly relevant considerations.
This means that for workers in physically demanding roles — particularly those working at height, operating heavy equipment, or doing manual handling tasks — a generic risk assessment that does not consider the individual is not fully compliant.
Employers do not need to single out older workers or treat them as a separate category. But the risk assessment process should prompt the question: are the controls in place appropriate for this person, doing this task, at this stage of their working life?
Practical Steps for UK Employers
- Review risk assessments for roles that involve working at height, manual handling, or operating moving machinery, with individual capability in mind
- Ensure toolbox talks cover topics relevant to the specific workforce on site — including any tasks where age-related factors could affect risk
- Build in regular review points so that assessments are revisited when working conditions or the workforce changes, not just when something goes wrong
RiskCompli allows you to build and maintain risk assessments that are specific to the task, the site, and the people doing the work — rather than relying on generic documents that may not reflect the actual risk. Try it free, no card needed: riskcompli.safecompli.co.uk
For more guidance on health and safety risk management, visit www.safecompli.co.uk
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