What is the most dangerous job in the UK?

By deaths, farming: agriculture, forestry and fishing had 113 worker deaths in the five years to 2025/26 and a fatal injury rate of 8.08 per 100,000 workers, about 21 times the all-industry rate. By injuries of any kind, the Labour Force Survey puts chefs top, at 8,220 self-reported injuries per 100,000 workers a year. HSE does not publish deaths by occupation, only by industry.

Which industry has the most deaths?

Construction, with 186 worker deaths in the five years to 2025/26 and 25 in 2025/26 alone. Its rate, 1.78 per 100,000, is lower than agriculture's because construction employs far more people.

Are the self-employed more likely to die at work?

Yes. Over the five years to 2025/26 the fatal injury rate for the self-employed was 0.93 per 100,000 against 0.3 for employees, 3.1 times higher. Part of that is where the self-employed work: farming and construction trades. Part is age, since the self-employed skew older.

Why are there no fatal injury rates for individual jobs?

HSE records the industry of the employer, not the occupation of the person killed, so fatal rates exist by industry only. Occupation data comes from the Labour Force Survey, which asks workers whether they were injured, so it covers all injuries and is reported per occupation with a confidence interval.

Is there 2025/26 data?

For deaths, yes: the fatal injury figures cover the year to 31 March 2026, published 30 June 2026 and provisional until July 2027. Non-fatal injury rates by industry and by occupation are from the November 2025 release and run to 2024/25. The next annual release is due on 19 November 2026.

Yes. Quote it with a link to this page. The underlying figures are Crown copyright under the Open Government Licence. Both CSVs carry the SIC and SOC codes so you can join them to your own data.

Reports

Britain's most dangerous jobs and industries

Which industries kill the most workers, which jobs injure the most, how people die at work and who is most at risk. Deaths are from HSE's fatal injury release of 30 June 2026, covering the year to 31 March 2026, and its case listing of every death since 2021. Injury rates by industry and occupation are from the November 2025 annual release.

Last reviewed 15 September 2026

Jump to jobs CSV: industries CSV: occupations

Key findings

126 workers were killed at work in 2025/26, a rate of 0.37 per 100,000. Over the five years to 2025/26 the total is 651, plus 447 members of the public killed by work activity.
Agriculture, forestry and fishing is the deadliest industry by rate: 8.08 deaths per 100,000 workers a year, 21 times the average. Construction has the most deaths, 186 in five years.
Chefs report the most injuries of any job: 8,220 per 100,000 workers a year, against 1,670 for all occupations. Police officers (sergeant and below) and animal care services occupations n.e.c. follow.
Falls from height are the biggest killer, 184 deaths in five years, 28% of the total. In construction they account for 52% of deaths. Being struck by a vehicle is second, at 110.
The self-employed die at 3.1 times the rate of employees: 0.93 against 0.3 per 100,000.
Workers aged 65 and over have a fatal rate of 1.65 per 100,000, 8 times that of workers aged 25 to 34.

Fatal injury rate by industry

Ranked by HSE's fatal injury rate over the five years to 2025/26. A five-year rate is the fair comparison: in a single year a small industry can double or halve its rate on a handful of deaths. Indented rows are HSE's own "of which" breakouts and are not ranked.

Deaths: Workers, employees and self-employed together, killed in work-related accidents reported under RIDDOR. Excludes work-related road deaths, which are police-recorded, and deaths from disease.
Rate: Deaths per 100,000 workers in the industry, per year. HSE calculates it from Labour Force Survey employment estimates.
Non-fatal rate: Non-fatal injuries to employees reported under RIDDOR per 100,000 employees, 2024/25. Reported injuries are around half of those that should be reported, and reporting levels vary by industry.

Agriculture, forestry and fishing

8.08

Water supply, sewerage and waste

1.96

Construction

1.78

Mining and quarrying

1.23

Transportation and storage

0.94

Manufacturing

0.63

Electricity and gas supply

0.44

Wholesale, retail, accommodation and food

0.23

Arts, entertainment and other services

0.21

Information, finance, property, professional and admin services

0.16

Public administration, education, health and social work

0.03

Fatal injuries per 100,000 workers a year, 2021/22 to 2025/26. Source: HSE RIDFATAL Table 1.

IndustrySIC section	Deaths2025/26	Rateper 100,000, 2025/26	Deaths2021/22 to 2025/26	Rateper 100,000, five years	Non-fatal rateper 100,000 employees, 2024/25
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	22	8.09	113	8.08	523
Water supply, sewerage and waste	6	2.37	24	1.96	785
of which waste collection, treatment and disposal	6	5.47	23	4.03	n/a
Construction	25	1.23	186	1.78	280
Mining and quarrying	2	1.86	7	1.23	86
Transportation and storage	15	0.94	73	0.94	649
Manufacturing	18	0.70	82	0.63	363
Electricity and gas supply	1	0.54	4	0.44	153
Wholesale, retail, accommodation and food	11	0.21	61	0.23	n/a
Arts, entertainment and other services	6	0.28	21	0.21	200
Information, finance, property, professional and admin services	12	0.15	61	0.16	41
Public administration, education, health and social work	7	0.06	18	0.03	159
All industries	126	0.37	651	0.39	209

Waste and recycling stands out: within the water and waste section, waste collection and treatment alone runs at 4.03 per 100,000, second only to farming. Non-fatal and fatal rates do not line up. Waste and transport report far more non-fatal injuries per employee than agriculture does, partly because farm injuries to the self-employed go unreported.

Detailed industries

The 25 detailed industries (2-digit SIC divisions) with the highest fatal rates. HSE publishes division-level rates only in the November release, so the rate here runs to 2024/25 and the five-year mean is our average of HSE's annual rates for 2020/21 to 2024/25. Death counts come from the case listing and run to 2025/26. Divisions with fewer than five deaths in five years have rates that can double on a single incident.

IndustrySIC division	Deaths2025/26	Deaths2021/22 to 2025/26	Rateper 100,000, 2024/25	Rateper 100,000, mean 2020/21 to 2024/25
01 Crop and animal production, hunting and related service activities	22	107	8.17	9.36
02 Forestry and logging	0	4	10.43	5.39
38 Waste collection, treatment and disposal activities; materials recovery	6	23	2.70	3.31
03 Fishing and aquaculture	0	2	5.49	3.30
08 Other mining and quarrying	1	3	7.18	2.47
41,43 Construction of buildings; Specialised construction activities	24	163	1.62	2.05
17 Manufacture of paper and paper products	0	4	0.00	2.02
25 Manufacture of fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment	3	16	0.98	1.89
24 Manufacture of basic metals	1	7	1.52	1.88
23 Manufacture of other non-metallic mineral products	1	7	1.12	1.66
49 Land transport and transport via pipelines	10	53	1.65	1.49
45 Wholesale and retail trade and repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles	3	28	1.02	1.41
77 Rental and leasing activities	0	7	0.82	1.36
39 Remediation activities and other waste management services.	0	1	3.64	1.34
42 Civil engineering	1	23	1.81	1.27
16 Manufacture of wood and of products of wood and cork, except furniture; manufacture of articles of straw and plaiting materials	3	7	0.00	1.22
33 Repair and installation of machinery and equipment	2	9	0.48	1.10
81 Services to buildings and landscape activities	6	33	1.31	1.06
13 Manufacture of textiles	0	2	0.00	0.86
22 Manufacture of rubber and plastic products	1	4	0.00	0.84
50 Water transport	0	1	2.00	0.83
32 Other manufacturing	0	3	0.84	0.79
09 Mining support service activities	1	4	0.00	0.76
51 Air transport	0	2	0.00	0.74
93 Sports activities and amusement and recreation activities	2	15	0.95	0.58

All 56 divisions with at least one death, and the non-fatal rate for each, are in the industries CSV.

Injury rate by job

HSE records the industry of a death, not the occupation, so the job-level view comes from the Labour Force Survey, which asks a sample of workers whether they were injured at work in the last year. It counts every injury, not just the reportable ones, and it is the only official source that names jobs. Estimates are five-year averages for 2020/21 to 2024/25 and each comes with a confidence interval, because they are survey estimates. Jobs where the sample was too small for a reliable figure are left out, which is most of them.

Rate: Self-reported workplace injuries per 100,000 workers in the occupation, per year, averaged over 2020/21 to 2024/25. Road traffic accidents excluded.
Range: The 95% confidence interval. If two ranges overlap, the two jobs cannot be said to differ.
Injuries a year: HSE's estimate of the number of workers injured in the occupation each year, in thousands.

Individual occupations

OccupationSOC 2020 unit group	Rateper 100,000 workers a year	Range95% confidence	Injuries a yearthousands
Chefs	8,220	5,190 to 11,250	15
Police officers (sergeant and below)	8,140	5,730 to 10,550	15
Animal care services occupations n.e.c.	6,380	3,500 to 9,260	6
Vehicle technicians, mechanics and electricians	6,140	3,820 to 8,460	10
Carpenters and joiners	5,350	3,430 to 7,270	9
Gardeners and landscape gardeners	4,480	2,750 to 6,220	7
Nursing auxiliaries and assistants	4,370	2,810 to 5,930	12
Postal workers, mail sorters and messengers	4,340	2,200 to 6,490	6
Educational support assistants	4,060	2,380 to 5,740	8
Delivery drivers and couriers	4,050	2,620 to 5,470	12
Large goods vehicle drivers	4,000	2,640 to 5,360	11
Warehouse operatives	3,990	2,680 to 5,300	16
Metal working production and maintenance fitters	3,950	1,960 to 5,950	7
Construction and building trades n.e.c.	3,300	1,940 to 4,670	7
Teaching assistants	3,060	1,790 to 4,330	8
Care workers and home carers	2,930	2,190 to 3,660	25
Other nursing professionals	2,660	1,640 to 3,680	9
Kitchen and catering assistants	2,660	1,540 to 3,780	11
Primary education teaching professionals	1,920	1,120 to 2,720	7
Sales and retail assistants	1,860	1,270 to 2,440	16
Cleaners and domestics	1,540	890 to 2,190	7
All occupations	1,670	1,580 to 1,760

Chefs and police officers (sergeant and below) top the list, ahead of the building trades that lead the fatal figures. Kitchens produce burns, cuts and slips at a rate few other workplaces match; policing produces assaults. Neither shows up in the death tables, which is the point of reading both.

Occupation groups

Occupation groupSOC 2020 sub-major group	Rateper 100,000 workers a year	Range95% confidence	Injuries a yearthousands
Protective service occupations	5,520	4,220 to 6,830	23
Textiles, printing and other skilled trades	5,220	3,910 to 6,520	29
Skilled agricultural and related trades	4,130	2,880 to 5,380	14
Skilled construction and building trades	3,890	3,110 to 4,670	34
Skilled metal, electrical and electronic trades	3,870	3,110 to 4,640	39
Elementary trades and related occupations	3,750	2,540 to 4,960	14
Caring personal service occupations	3,490	2,970 to 4,020	74
Transport and mobile machine drivers and operatives	2,940	2,330 to 3,560	33
Process, plant and machine operatives	2,890	2,160 to 3,630	21
Elementary administration and service occupations	2,460	2,080 to 2,850	63
Sales occupations	1,840	1,410 to 2,270	27
Health professionals	1,600	1,240 to 1,970	25
Health and social care associate professionals	1,380	900 to 1,860	9
Culture, media and sports occupations	1,370	830 to 1,900	10
Science, engineering and technology associate professionals	1,140	660 to 1,610	7
Teaching and other educational professionals	1,120	820 to 1,410	18
Other managers and proprietors	1,010	670 to 1,340	11
Administrative occupations	800	570 to 1,030	21
Corporate managers and directors	710	500 to 910	17
Business and public service associate professionals	450	290 to 620	11
Science, research, engineering and technology professionals	440	280 to 590	11
Business, media and public service professionals	400	230 to 570	11

Broad occupation classes

Skilled trades occupations

4,180

Caring, leisure and other service occupations

2,920

Process, plant and machine operatives

2,920

Elementary occupations

2,630

Sales and customer service occupations

1,590

Associate professional occupations

1,250

Managers, directors and senior officials

800

Administrative and secretarial occupations

800

Professional occupations

770

Self-reported injuries per 100,000 workers a year, 2020/21 to 2024/25. Source: HSE LFSINJOCC Table 1.

All 52 occupations with a reliable estimate, at every SOC level, are in the occupations CSV.

How workers die

Kind of accident for every worker death, 2025/26 and the five years to 2025/26, split between employees and the self-employed. Falls from height kill more self-employed workers than employees, which no other cause does.

Kind of accident	Deaths2025/26	Deaths2021/22 to 2025/26	Sharefive years	Employeesfive years	Self-employedfive years
Fall from height	31	184	28%	97	87
Struck by vehicle	24	110	17%	81	29
Struck by object	21	108	17%	81	27
Collapse or overturn	18	75	12%	52	23
Moving machinery	10	52	8%	45	7
Electricity	5	29	4%	17	12
Struck against fixed object	1	18	3%	11	7
Other	3	18	3%	13	5
Animal	2	14	2%	4	10
Drowning or asphyxiation	2	13	2%	4	9
Slip, trip or fall on same level	4	9	1%	9	0
Violence	2	6	1%	6	0
Harmful substance	2	5	1%	3	2
Explosion	1	5	1%	3	2
Fire	0	4	1%	1	3
Handling or lifting	0	1	0%	1	0

Cause of death by industry

Our cross-tabulation of HSE's case listing: every worker death from 2021/22 to 2025/26 by the industry of the employer and the kind of accident. Industries with fewer than ten deaths in five years are left out. The six causes shown account for 86% of all deaths.

Industry	All deaths	Fall from height	Struck by vehicle	Struck by object	Collapse or overturn	Moving machinery	Electricity
Construction	186	97	18	22	21	2	14
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	113	14	26	20	13	13	3
Manufacturing	82	15	8	17	10	15	2
Transportation and storage	73	15	22	18	5	4	2
Administrative and support service activities	53	12	6	13	2	6	5
Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles	50	8	7	5	16	7	1
Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation	24	1	11	4	2	3	1
Arts, entertainment and recreation	17	3	4	2	–	1	–
Accommodation and food service activities	11	4	2	–	1	–	1

Each industry has a signature. Construction is falls: 52% of its deaths. Agriculture is vehicles, machinery and animals. Transport and storage is vehicles and falling loads. Manufacturing is machinery and falling objects. The document that matters most is different in each case: a work at height plan on a site, a vehicle movement plan in a yard, machinery guarding and isolation on a factory floor.

Age and employment status

Fatal injury rate by age, five years to 2025/26. Risk climbs steeply past 55, and the self-employed are at higher risk in every age band. HSE notes that a third of worker deaths are people aged 60 and over, who are about an eighth of the workforce.

Age	Deaths2025/26	Deaths2021/22 to 2025/26	Rateper 100,000, five years	Employeesrate, five years	Self-employedrate, five years
16-19	2	15	0.32	0.31	0.66
20-24	7	32	0.24	0.20	0.81
25-34	20	78	0.21	0.18	0.40
35-44	21	112	0.30	0.24	0.68
45-54	18	115	0.31	0.27	0.52
55-59	17	90	0.54	0.36	1.36
60-64	14	79	0.68	0.60	0.94
65+	26	117	1.65	1.11	2.65
All ages	126	651	0.39	0.30	0.93

Self-employed by industry

Five-year fatal rates for employees and the self-employed in the same industry. In agriculture and construction the self-employed rate is well above the employee rate; these two sections account for most self-employed deaths.

Industry	Employee deathsfive years	Employee rateper 100,000	Self-employed deathsfive years	Self-employed rateper 100,000
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	41	5.70	72	10.60
Water supply, sewerage and waste	21	1.79	3	5.66
Construction	101	1.53	85	2.21
Transportation and storage	66	1.02	7	0.52
Manufacturing	73	0.61	9	0.87
Wholesale, retail, accommodation and food	49	0.21	12	0.46
Arts, entertainment and other services	13	0.19	8	0.24
Information, finance, property, professional and admin services	36	0.11	25	0.35
Public administration, education, health and social work	18	0.04	0	0.00

Members of the public

Work activity also kills people who are not at work: 104 in 2025/26 and 447 over five years. Most are in transport (struck by vehicles, many on the railways), health and social care (falls and choking in care settings, which HSE records as drowning or asphyxiation) and leisure.

Industry	2025/26	Five years
Public administration, education, health and social work	29	142
Transportation and storage	32	125
Arts, entertainment and other services	17	60
Wholesale, retail, accommodation and food	9	48
Agriculture, forestry and fishing	7	25
Construction	3	18
Information, finance, property, professional and admin services	4	17
Water supply, sewerage and waste	3	11

Kind of accident	Five years
Struck by vehicle	121
Fall from height	72
Slip, trip or fall on same level	71
Drowning or asphyxiation	70
Other	40
Struck by object	22

How to read the numbers

Two sources, two clocks. Deaths come from HSE's fatal injuries release each July and cover 2025/26, provisional until July 2027. Non-fatal injuries by industry and the Labour Force Survey occupation data come from the annual release each November and run to 2024/25. This page is rebuilt after each.
Deaths are counts, injury rates are estimates. Every death is recorded, so the fatal figures are complete. The occupation figures are survey estimates with confidence intervals; treat two jobs whose ranges overlap as not distinguishable.
Industry against occupation. A death is filed under the employer's industry, so a scaffolder killed while working for a cleaning company counts as administrative and support services. The occupation table is by the worker's job, from the survey.
What is excluded. Road deaths while driving for work (police-recorded), deaths from occupational disease (around 13,000 a year on HSE's estimate, mostly lung disease from past exposure), suicides, and deaths in the armed forces or at sea and in the air covered by other regulators.
Our calculations. The five-year section rates, kind and age tables are HSE's. The division five-year mean, the cause-by-industry cross-tab and the division death counts are ours, from HSE's published rows and case listing. Method and code are in the site repository.

What this means for an employer

The industry tables say where the risk sits. The cause tables say what it looks like, and that is what a risk assessment has to name: the fall, the reversing vehicle, the unguarded machine. Write the assessment for the task, not the trade. If your work uses hazardous substances as well, the free COSHH assessment generator covers that side and cites the regulation on every page.

Cite this report

"Britain's most dangerous jobs and industries, 2025/26 data", Safety Papers, September 2026, https://www.safetypapers.com/reports/most-dangerous-jobs/. Underlying data: HSE, RIDFATAL and the RIDDOR fatalities case listing, published 30 June 2026; RIDIND and LFSINJOCC, published 20 November 2025. Crown copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0.

Common questions

What is the most dangerous job in the UK?: By deaths, farming: agriculture, forestry and fishing had 113 worker deaths in the five years to 2025/26 and a fatal injury rate of 8.08 per 100,000 workers, about 21 times the all-industry rate. By injuries of any kind, the Labour Force Survey puts chefs top, at 8,220 self-reported injuries per 100,000 workers a year. HSE does not publish deaths by occupation, only by industry.
Which industry has the most deaths?: Construction, with 186 worker deaths in the five years to 2025/26 and 25 in 2025/26 alone. Its rate, 1.78 per 100,000, is lower than agriculture's because construction employs far more people.
Are the self-employed more likely to die at work?: Yes. Over the five years to 2025/26 the fatal injury rate for the self-employed was 0.93 per 100,000 against 0.3 for employees, 3.1 times higher. Part of that is where the self-employed work: farming and construction trades. Part is age, since the self-employed skew older.
Why are there no fatal injury rates for individual jobs?: HSE records the industry of the employer, not the occupation of the person killed, so fatal rates exist by industry only. Occupation data comes from the Labour Force Survey, which asks workers whether they were injured, so it covers all injuries and is reported per occupation with a confidence interval.
Is there 2025/26 data?: For deaths, yes: the fatal injury figures cover the year to 31 March 2026, published 30 June 2026 and provisional until July 2027. Non-fatal injury rates by industry and by occupation are from the November 2025 release and run to 2024/25. The next annual release is due on 19 November 2026.
Can I use this data?: Yes. Quote it with a link to this page. The underlying figures are Crown copyright under the Open Government Licence. Both CSVs carry the SIC and SOC codes so you can join them to your own data.