The definitive count of how many organisations hold ISO 45001 — the international standard for occupational health and safety management systems — comes from one source: The ISO Survey, published every September by the International Organization for Standardization. This page pulls the UK numbers out of that survey’s 2018–2024 time series, sets them alongside the worldwide totals, and cross-checks them against independent analyses of the same data from Parola ViewPoint, simpleQuE and UK certification body Swift Certification. Every figure carries its data period, and the whole page refreshes each autumn when the next survey lands.
A note on scope before the numbers. ISO 45001 is voluntary certification — a management-system badge, not a legal duty. It sits alongside, but does not replace, the statutory duty to assess workplace risk. This page counts certificates and sites; it does not cover injuries, RIDDOR reports or enforcement. Those belong to the legal-duty story on our risk assessment statistics and HSE enforcement statistics pages.
Key facts and figures
- 10,757 valid ISO 45001 certificates were held in the UK in 2024, covering more than 20,000 sites.
- 5th — the UK’s world ranking for ISO 45001 certificates in 2024, behind China, Italy, South Korea and India.
- 542,527 valid ISO 45001 certificates existed worldwide in 2024, across 941,546 sites.
- ~393% — the one-year jump in global certificates from 2019 (38,654) to 2020 (190,481) as OHSAS 18001 migration ramped up.
- ~45x growth worldwide since 2018, when the standard’s first year recorded just 11,952 certificates.
- 3rd — where health & safety ranks among UK management standards, behind ISO 9001 (32,988) and ISO 14001 (16,140).
- 30 Sept 2021 — the deadline by which OHSAS 18001 certificates had to migrate to ISO 45001 or lapse.
- Not a legal requirement — the HSE’s explicit position on ISO 45001 certification.
All figures are the latest available as of July 2026, drawn from the 2024 ISO Survey published in September 2025. This page is refreshed each autumn: the next release, covering 2025 data, is due in September 2026, when the UK count, the top-five ranking and the global total will all be updated.
How many companies in the UK have ISO 45001?
10,757 valid ISO 45001 certificates were held by UK organisations in 2024, covering more than 20,000 individual sites, according to the 2024 ISO Survey and independent breakdowns of it by simpleQuE and Swift Certification. A certificate and a site are not the same thing: a single certificate can cover a head office plus multiple operating locations, which is why the site count runs well ahead of the certificate count.
That figure puts occupational health and safety third among the UK’s management-system standards. In the same 2024 data the UK recorded 32,988 ISO 9001 (quality) certificates and 16,140 ISO 14001 (environmental) certificates. Health and safety trails both, but the gap has been closing steadily since ISO 45001 launched — a sign that UK employers increasingly treat a certified safety management system as part of the same governance package as quality and environmental accreditation.
| UK management-system certificates (2024) | Certificates | Standard covers |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 9001 | 32,988 | Quality management |
| ISO 14001 | 16,140 | Environmental management |
| ISO 45001 | 10,757 | Occupational health & safety |
Source: 2024 ISO Survey, as tabulated by Swift Certification and simpleQuE. The UK count of 10,757 covers 20,000-plus sites.
Where does the UK rank in the world?
The UK held 5th place worldwide for ISO 45001 certificates in 2024, keeping it inside the global top five for the standard. The four countries ahead of it are China, Italy, South Korea and India — and the gap to first place is enormous. China alone accounted for 355,480 certificates in 2024, more than 33 times the UK total and the majority of every certificate issued worldwide.
| Rank | Country | ISO 45001 certificates (2024) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 355,480 |
| 2 | Italy | 23,502 |
| 3 | South Korea | 20,024 |
| 4 | India | 14,171 |
| 5 | United Kingdom | 10,757 |
Source: 2024 ISO Survey, as analysed by simpleQuE. China’s dominance is worth keeping in view when reading the worldwide totals below: because one country supplies most of the certificates, the global figure moves sharply whenever China’s reporting changes — a point that matters for the 2022–2023 dip covered further down.
How many ISO 45001 certificates are there worldwide?
542,527 valid ISO 45001 certificates existed worldwide in 2024, spread across 941,546 sites, according to the 2024 ISO Survey and the Parola ViewPoint time-series table built from it. That is the highest annual certificate total the standard has ever recorded, and it confirms ISO 45001 as firmly established: from a standing start in 2018 it now covers close to a million sites globally.
The near-million site count matters for anyone reading these numbers as a measure of real-world adoption. Because one certificate can span many sites, the 941,546 sites give a truer picture of the standard’s operational footprint than the headline certificate count alone. Between them, the certificate and site figures show a management standard that has scaled from niche to mainstream inside seven annual survey cycles.
What are the ISO 45001 adoption trends since 2018?
The defining feature of ISO 45001’s history is a single explosive year: global certificates jumped from 38,654 in 2019 to 190,481 in 2020 — a rise of roughly 393% in twelve months — as organisations rushed to migrate off the retiring OHSAS 18001 standard. Over the full run, the standard grew from just 11,952 certificates in 2018, its first year, to 542,527 by 2024: an increase of about 45 times. Site coverage tells the same story, rising from 14,607 sites in 2018 to 941,546 in 2024.
| Year | Worldwide certificates | Worldwide sites |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 11,952 | 14,607 |
| 2019 | 38,654 | — |
| 2020 | 190,481 | — |
| 2022 | 397,339 | — |
| 2023 | 185,166 | — |
| 2024 | 542,527 | 941,546 |
Source: Parola ViewPoint time series (dated 6 February 2026) and the ISO Survey. The one figure in that table that looks wrong is the 2023 drop — and it is not a real decline. Worldwide certificates peaked at 397,339 in 2022 and the reported 2023 total fell to 185,166, but analysts including simpleQuE and Oxebridge attribute the fall to China not submitting data that year, not to organisations abandoning the standard. The 2024 rebound to 542,527, once China’s numbers returned, confirms the dip as a reporting artefact rather than a genuine contraction. Read year-on-year, this is one to treat with care.
Why did ISO 45001 grow so fast — the OHSAS 18001 migration
The growth spike was driven by a deadline. ISO 45001 was published in March 2018, replacing the older British-origin standard OHSAS 18001 over a three-year migration window. Organisations already certified to OHSAS 18001 had to move to the new standard or lose their certification, and the migration deadline was 30 September 2021 — extended six months from the original 30 March 2021 because of COVID-19 disruption, according to IOSH Magazine’s coverage at the time.
That deadline explains the shape of the curve. Certificates climbed steeply through 2019 and 2020 as migrations completed ahead of the cut-off, then continued rising as newly certifying organisations joined. For UK readers, one further date matters: BS EN ISO 45001:2023, the harmonised European version, was published by BSI on 31 August 2023, superseding the earlier BS ISO 45001:2018 in the UK. The technical requirements are unchanged; the update aligns the British and European editions.
Is ISO 45001 a legal requirement in the UK?
No. ISO 45001 is a voluntary standard, and the Health and Safety Executive states plainly that it is not a legal requirement. In its guidance the HSE stresses that inspectors rely on a wide range of evidence about how a business manages health and safety, “not just whether they claim to meet the ISO 45001 standard or not”. Certification alone does not satisfy the law, and the absence of it is not itself a breach.
The legal duty is separate and universal. Every employer must make a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of workplace risks under regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 — whether or not they hold any certificate. ISO 45001 is best understood as a structured way of discharging that duty well: clause 6.1 of the standard is, in effect, risk assessment formalised at management-system level, requiring the organisation to identify hazards and assess occupational health and safety risks as a systematic, documented process. Holding the certificate demonstrates a mature system; it does not remove the underlying legal obligation. For what that obligation actually requires, see our guide to what a risk assessment is under UK law and the five-step process.
How reliable is the ISO Survey data?
From the 2024 survey onwards, the ISO Survey draws its figures from the IAF CertSearch database rather than from voluntary submissions by individual certification bodies. IAF CertSearch became the mandatory source feeding the survey, which analysts including Oxebridge and Parola ViewPoint note should improve data completeness over the older voluntary model, where non-responding bodies left gaps. The trade-off is a change of methodology mid-series, so strict year-on-year comparisons across the 2023–2024 boundary should be read with that in mind.
The clearest illustration of why the caveats matter is the China effect already described: a single large reporting country dropping out in 2023 knocked the global total roughly in half before the 2024 rebound. The direction of travel — strong, sustained UK and worldwide adoption — is not in doubt, but the exact year-on-year deltas around 2022–2024 reflect reporting mechanics as much as real-world change. Treat the levels (10,757 UK certificates; 542,527 worldwide) as solid, and the single-year jumps and dips with appropriate caution.
Frequently asked questions
How many companies in the UK have ISO 45001 certification?
The UK held 10,757 valid ISO 45001 certificates in 2024, covering more than 20,000 sites, according to the 2024 ISO Survey. That is a certificate count rather than a company count — a single certificate can cover multiple sites within one organisation, and some organisations hold more than one certificate, so the number of certified UK businesses is not identical to the certificate total.
Is ISO 45001 a legal requirement in the UK?
No. ISO 45001 is a voluntary management-system standard, and the HSE states it is not a legal requirement. The legal duty is to make a suitable and sufficient risk assessment under regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, which applies to every employer regardless of certification. ISO 45001 is a structured way to meet that duty well, not a substitute for it.
How many ISO 45001 certificates are there worldwide?
There were 542,527 valid ISO 45001 certificates worldwide in 2024, across 941,546 sites — the highest total the standard has recorded. Worldwide certificates have grown roughly 45-fold from 11,952 in 2018, the standard’s first year.
How does ISO 45001 relate to risk assessment?
Risk assessment is the core of the standard. Clause 6.1 of ISO 45001 requires the organisation to identify hazards and assess occupational health and safety risks through a systematic, documented process — risk assessment formalised at management-system level. That is why a risk-assessment training site tracks ISO 45001 adoption: the certificate is, in large part, a certified risk-assessment process.
Which country has the most ISO 45001 certificates?
China, by a wide margin: 355,480 certificates in 2024, more than the rest of the top five combined. Italy (23,502), South Korea (20,024), India (14,171) and the United Kingdom (10,757) complete the top five. China’s dominance means the global total is sensitive to changes in Chinese reporting from one year to the next.
How often are these ISO 45001 statistics updated?
The ISO Survey is published every September, so this page gets a clean annual data drop. The 2024 survey used here was published in September 2025; the next release, covering 2025, is expected in September 2026. Figures on this page are the latest available as of July 2026.
Related guides
- Risk Assessment Statistics UK: Compliance Facts & Data
- HSE Enforcement Statistics UK: Fines, Prosecutions & Notices
- Work-Related Stress Statistics UK: HSE Facts & Data
- What is a risk assessment? A guide to UK workplace law
- Who can carry out a risk assessment? The competence question explained
Sources & references
- ISO — The ISO Survey (official annual certificate and site counts, all standards and countries; 2024 survey published September 2025)
- IAF CertSearch — ISO Survey data portal (the mandatory source feeding the survey from 2024)
- Parola ViewPoint — ISO Survey 2018 to 2024 time-series table (worldwide certificates and sites per standard per year)
- simpleQuE — A look at the 2024 ISO Survey (top-ten countries including the UK, per standard)
- Swift Certification — ISO Certification Trends: What UK SMEs Need to Know (UK per-standard counts)
- Health and Safety Executive — Health and safety management systems: ISO 45001 (regulator framing: voluntary, not a legal requirement)
- Oxebridge — 2024 ISO Survey analysis (methodology caveat: IAF takeover, China data gaps)
- IOSH Magazine — ISO 45001 migration deadline coverage (OHSAS 18001 to ISO 45001, 30 September 2021)
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Mark writes about workplace health & safety, risk assessment and accredited online training for Risk Assessment Training, part of Online CPD Academy.