THE UK construction sector suffered 25 fatal work-related incidents in 2025/26, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) figures have revealed.
A total of 126 workers died in work-related incidents across all sectors in 2025/26, with the construction industry having the most fatalities across all sectors.
HSE has developed a new analysis method which compares the level and trend of fatal injuries to UK workers with a selection of 35 other countries from around the world – meaning, for the first time, the results can be compared with non-European countries.
The organisation said that this analysis has further supported evidence that Britain is maintaining its position as ‘one of the safest’ places to work in the world.
Excluding the years affected by the Covid-19 pandemic (2019/20-2021/22), the number of worker deaths in 2025/26 is provisionally the lowest number recorded in a single year – comparing to 217 fatalities 20 years ago (2005/06) and 495 in 1981.
The industries with the highest number of deaths continue to be construction (25) and agriculture, forestry and fishing (22). Of all main industry sectors, agriculture, forestry and fishing continues to have the highest rate of fatal injury per 100,000 workers (8.09) followed by waste and recycling (5.47). This compares to an average 0.37 fatal injuries per 100,000 workers across all industries combined.
The most common cause of fatal injuries continues to be falls from a height (31), representing around a quarter of worker deaths in 2025/26. Workers aged 60 and over accounted for around a third of all fatalities during the year (40) despite that age group accounting for just 12 per cent of the workforce.
A further 104 people who were not at work were killed as a result of work-related incidents in 2025/26. This refers to members of the public who were not directly working themselves at the time of the incident.
HSE’s chief executive Sarah Albon, said, “Every one of these numbers represents a loved one lost; serving as a powerful reminder of the importance of the work we do.
“We can be proud that Great Britain remains one of the safest places in the world to work, and the new analysis we have developed this year, for the first time, allows us to compare our safety record with a wide range of other advanced economies.”
The HSE has also published the annual figures for mesothelioma, a cancer caused by past exposure to asbestos. These show that 2,146 people died from the disease in Great Britain in 2024, representing a fall of 109 compared with 2023 and substantially lower than the average of 2,508 deaths per year over the ten-year period 2011-2020.
Many current mesothelioma deaths still reflect exposure to asbestos that often occurred before the 1980s and annual deaths are expected to continue declining during the next decade.
