Workplace injuries and new cases of work-related ill health cost Great Britain an estimated £22.9 billion a year, according to the Health and Safety Executive’s Costs to Britain model. But the headline figure hides the part that matters most to employers: the “iceberg” of uninsured losses, the mounting cost of sickness absence and presenteeism, and the fines that follow when prevention fails. This page pulls those employer-facing costs together into one fully cited business case for taking risk assessment seriously.
The numbers here come from the HSE’s Costs to Britain estimates and annual statistics for Great Britain, the HSE Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25, the CIPD Health and Wellbeing at Work survey, and IPPR’s research on the cost of employee sickness. Every figure is linked to its source at the end of the page, and each one is dated so you can see exactly which period it covers.
Key facts and figures
- £22.9 billion — the estimated annual cost to Great Britain of workplace injuries and new cases of work-related ill health (2023/24 cost model, in 2023 prices).
- £8 to £36 — the HSE’s “iceberg” ratio: uninsured losses of £8 to £36 for every £1 an employer recovers from insurers after an accident.
- ~£315 per employee — the estimated uninsured accident cost carried each year by a smaller firm (HSE / RoSPA costing model).
- £10,000 & £24,200 — the HSE’s unit costs per case in 2023/24: around £10,000 per injury and £24,200 per case of ill health.
- 9.4 days — the average sickness absence per UK employee in 2025, the highest in over 15 years, up from 7.8 days in 2023 (CIPD).
- £103 billion — the estimated cost of employee sickness to UK employers and the economy in 2023, up £30 billion since 2018 (IPPR).
- £33 million+ — fines secured across 246 completed HSE prosecutions in 2024/25, a 96% conviction rate (HSE Annual Report).
- 40.1 million — working days lost to work-related ill health and injury in Great Britain in 2024/25 (HSE).
All figures are the latest available as of July 2026. This page is refreshed once a year: the HSE republishes its Costs to Britain model and annual statistics each November, the CIPD publishes its Health and Wellbeing survey each September, and the HSE Annual Report fines figure updates in the summer.
How much does poor health and safety cost UK businesses each year?
£22.9 billion is the HSE’s headline estimate of the annual cost to Great Britain of workplace injuries and new cases of work-related ill health — a figure based on a three-year average covering 2021/22 to 2023/24, expressed in 2023 prices. It is the single most-quoted number in any safety business case, and it captures lost output, healthcare and other costs, and a monetary value placed on the human cost of pain, grief and suffering.
Of that total, ill health accounts for around 72% (£16.4 billion) and injury for around 28% (£6.5 billion) — a reminder that the slow-burn hazards a risk assessment has to manage, such as stress, musculoskeletal strain and exposure to harmful substances, cost far more in aggregate than the visible accidents. The HSE splits the £22.9 billion across who ultimately pays it: individuals bear the largest share, followed by government and then employers. That distributional breakdown is covered in depth by our sister site’s cost of workplace injuries to the UK page; this page focuses on what the bill looks like from an employer’s side of the ledger, where the visible, insured costs are only the beginning.
What are the “uninsured” or hidden costs of a workplace accident?
For every £1 an employer recovers from insurers, the HSE estimates that £8 to £36 of losses are uninsured — the “iceberg” effect that makes accidents far more expensive than a claims history suggests. Employers’ liability insurance and property cover pay out for the tip: compensation, damage to plant, and a portion of the immediate loss. Everything below the waterline lands directly on the business’s own accounts.
Those uninsured costs are the ones a manager rarely sees itemised, but they add up quickly. They include sick pay and the cost of covering an absent worker, lost production while a line is stopped, damaged product and materials, overtime and recruitment to make up shortfalls, management and administration time spent on the investigation, higher insurance premiums at renewal, and the reputational damage that follows an incident. The HSE and RoSPA’s costing model puts the uninsured burden at roughly £315 per employee per year in smaller firms — a standing cost that a competent risk assessment is designed to bring down.
| Insured costs (the visible tip) | Uninsured costs (below the waterline) |
|---|---|
| Employers’ liability compensation | Sick pay and cover for absent staff |
| Damage to buildings and plant | Lost production and stopped output |
| Public and product liability claims | Damaged product, tools and materials |
| A share of immediate response costs | Overtime, recruitment and retraining |
| — | Investigation, management and admin time |
| — | Higher premiums and lost business reputation |
The lesson employers take from the ratio is blunt: the money spent settling a claim is typically the smallest part of what an accident really costs. Recovering it in full is rarely possible, which is why the HSE frames the iceberg as an argument for prevention rather than better insurance.
How much does workplace injury and ill health cost per employee?
The HSE prices a single case at around £10,000 for an injury and £24,200 for a case of work-related ill health (2023/24 unit costs), and estimates the uninsured element alone at roughly £315 per employee a year in smaller firms. Those two numbers work at different scales, but both translate the £22.9 billion abstraction into figures a finance director can plan around.
The reason ill health costs more than double an injury per case is duration. An acute injury tends to resolve; a case of stress, a musculoskeletal disorder or a respiratory condition can keep someone off work for weeks and reduce their output long after they return. That is reflected in the working-days-lost data: of the 40.1 million days lost to work-related ill health and injury in Great Britain in 2024/25, 35.7 million were down to ill health and only 4.4 million to non-fatal injury. On average, each case cost 16.4 days — rising to 22.9 days for stress, depression or anxiety and 14.0 days for musculoskeletal disorders.
| Cost metric | Figure | Data period |
|---|---|---|
| HSE unit cost per injury case | ~£10,000 | 2023/24 |
| HSE unit cost per ill-health case | ~£24,200 | 2023/24 |
| Uninsured cost per employee (smaller firms) | ~£315/year | HSE / RoSPA model |
| Working days lost, all causes | 40.1 million | 2024/25 |
| Average days lost per case | 16.4 days | 2024/25 |
| Average days lost per stress case | 22.9 days | 2024/25 |
How much does sickness absence cost employers?
UK employees took an average of 9.4 days of sickness absence in 2025 — the highest rate in over 15 years, up from 7.8 days in 2023, according to the CIPD’s Health and Wellbeing at Work survey. Not all of that absence is work-caused, but the trend is the backdrop against which every employer now budgets, and it feeds directly into the uninsured cost of covering absent staff described above.
Absence is not spread evenly. CIPD’s 2025 survey found public-sector staff averaged 13.3 sickness days, against 9.1 in the private sector and 6.5 in the non-profit sector — a gap driven partly by workforce demographics and the nature of front-line roles. At an organisational level, the picture that emerges is one of rising, persistent absence that makes the case for managing work-related causes — stress and musculoskeletal strain chief among them — a clear financial priority rather than a wellbeing nicety.
The single biggest work-related driver behind that absence is stress: 964,000 workers reported work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25, and stress cases carry the longest average absence of any category. We keep the detailed cost-of-stress analysis on our dedicated work-related stress statistics page, where the causes and the employer’s legal duty are set out in full.
What is presenteeism costing employers?
Employee sickness cost UK employers and the economy an estimated £103 billion in 2023 — up £30 billion since 2018 — and most of that increase came from presenteeism, not extra sick days, according to IPPR. Of the £30 billion rise, IPPR attributes around £25 billion to presenteeism (people working while unwell and producing less) and only about £5 billion to additional days taken off sick.
Presenteeism is the cost that never shows up in an absence report, which is precisely why it is so easily overlooked. IPPR estimated that workers lost the equivalent of 44 days of productivity to presenteeism in 2023, up from 35 days in 2018 — a hidden drag that dwarfs recorded absence. For employers building a business case, the implication is that the true cost of poor workplace health is far larger than the sick-day count alone suggests, and that managing the conditions which push people to work while unwell is where much of the value sits.
| Sickness-cost measure | Figure | Data period |
|---|---|---|
| Total cost of employee sickness (UK) | £103 billion | 2023 |
| Increase since 2018 | +£30 billion | 2018–2023 |
| Share of increase from presenteeism | ~£25 billion | 2018–2023 |
| Share of increase from extra sick days | ~£5 billion | 2018–2023 |
| Productivity days lost to presenteeism | 44 days | 2023 (35 in 2018) |
How much do health and safety fines and enforcement cost?
The courts imposed more than £33 million in fines across 246 completed HSE prosecutions in 2024/25, with a 96% conviction rate — a simple average of roughly £134,000 per prosecution. There is no statutory cap: since the 2016 sentencing guideline, fines are scaled to an organisation’s turnover, so a serious breach at a large employer can run into the millions.
A fine is only the headline cost. On top of it sit prosecution costs, the Fee for Intervention charged for an inspector’s time, higher insurance premiums, and the commercial damage of a conviction that stays on the HSE’s public register for up to ten years. Enforcement short of prosecution is far more common: the HSE issued over 4,400 enforcement notices in 2024/25 — around 3,200 improvement notices and 1,200 prohibition notices — each of which can halt work or force costly changes at short notice. We keep the full breakdown of fines, prosecutions and notices on our HSE enforcement statistics page.
Why is prevention cheaper than dealing with an accident?
Because the recoverable, insured cost of an accident is only the tip of the iceberg: with uninsured losses running at £8 to £36 for every £1 reclaimed, the money an employer never gets back dwarfs the money an insurer pays out. Set against a total cost to Britain of £22.9 billion a year, prevention is not a compliance overhead — it is the cheapest line item on the safety budget.
A competent risk assessment is the mechanism that turns that logic into savings. It identifies the hazards most likely to cause the costly, long-duration ill-health cases; it puts controls in place before an incident occurs; and it produces the documented evidence that an inspector expects to see, keeping the business clear of Fee for Intervention charges and enforcement notices. Training staff to carry out and act on assessments competently — using the HSE’s five-step method — is a modest, one-off cost measured against the standing per-employee burden of accidents and absence. In cost-of-inaction terms, the arithmetic almost always favours doing the assessment.
Frequently asked questions
How much does poor health and safety cost UK businesses each year?
The HSE estimates that workplace injuries and new cases of work-related ill health cost Great Britain £22.9 billion a year (2023/24 cost model, in 2023 prices). Employers do not bear all of that directly, but their share is magnified by uninsured losses that run at £8 to £36 for every £1 recovered from insurers.
What are the “uninsured” or hidden costs of a workplace accident?
Uninsured costs are the losses insurance does not cover: sick pay and staff cover, lost production, damaged product, overtime and recruitment, investigation and management time, higher premiums, and reputational damage. The HSE estimates these at £8 to £36 for every £1 recovered from insurers — around £315 per employee a year in smaller firms.
How much does workplace injury and ill health cost per employee?
The HSE prices a case at around £10,000 for an injury and £24,200 for a case of work-related ill health (2023/24). The uninsured element alone is estimated at roughly £315 per employee per year in smaller firms, before any fine or insured claim is counted.
How much sickness absence does the average UK employee take?
UK employees took an average of 9.4 days of sickness absence in 2025, according to the CIPD — the highest in over 15 years, up from 7.8 days in 2023. Public-sector staff averaged 13.3 days, against 9.1 in the private sector and 6.5 in non-profits.
Why is prevention cheaper than dealing with an accident?
Because the insured cost an employer can recover is the smallest part of the bill. With uninsured losses of £8 to £36 for every £1 reclaimed, plus fines, Fee for Intervention and lost productivity, preventing an incident through a competent risk assessment is consistently cheaper than dealing with the aftermath.
Related guides
- HSE Enforcement Statistics UK: Fines, Prosecutions & Notices
- Risk Assessment Statistics UK: Compliance Facts & Data
- Work-Related Stress Statistics UK: HSE Facts & Data
- What is a risk assessment? A guide to UK workplace law
- The 5 steps to risk assessment: how to do one properly
Sources & references
- Health and Safety Executive — Costs to Great Britain of workplace injuries and new cases of work-related ill health (2023/24, updated January 2026)
- Health and Safety Executive — Key figures for Great Britain 2024/25 (statistics overview)
- Health and Safety Executive — Working days lost in Great Britain, 2024/25 (40.1 million days)
- HSE Media Centre — HSE publishes annual workplace health and safety statistics (20 November 2025)
- Health and Safety Executive — Annual Report and Accounts 2024/25, executive summary (GOV.UK): £33m+ in fines
- CIPD — Health and Wellbeing at Work survey report 2025 (9.4 days’ sickness absence)
- IPPR — Healthy industry, prosperous economy: the cost of employee sickness (£103bn, 2023 data)
- RoSPA — Costing accidents: the HSE iceberg model and the £1:£8–£36 uninsured-cost ratio
The cheapest line on any safety budget is the accident that never happens. Train your team to spot and control hazards before they become a claim, a fine or a month of lost output.
Explore the Risk Assessment Training course →
Mark writes about workplace health & safety, risk assessment and accredited online training for Risk Assessment Training, part of Online CPD Academy.