Before the pandemic the death rate in construction was slowing. The latest HSE figures show that this has now reversed.
Figures released by the HSE in November revealed that fatalities in construction were not just rising in terms of the numbers of deaths, but – in a significant development – fatalities per 100,000 workers were also increasing.
The latest annual data shows that 51 construction workers died of injuries on site in the year to 31 March 2024, confirming findings published in July. The average number of deaths in construction over a five-year period was 42. This continues an upward trend in deaths in the previous year.
More than half (52%) of these deaths were caused by falls from height, followed by being trapped by something collapsing and being struck by a moving object (both 11%).
The rate of fatal incidents per 100,000 workers was 2.4 for 2023/24, continuing the upward trend from the previous year. In 2022/23 the fatal injury rate in the construction sector increased to 2.1 per 100,000 workers, up from an average of 1.72 during the 2018/19 to 2022/23 period. Now the five-year average stands at 1.96.
Downward trend in fatal injuries
Prior to the pandemic, the rate of fatal injury to workers in construction showed a downward trend with signs of flattening out in more recent years. However, while the rate of fatal injury is prone to year-on-year fluctuations, the average rate to construction workers in the last two years is statistically higher than the pre-pandemic period, said the HSE report Construction Statistics in Great Britain, 2024.
The growing rate of fatal incidents has prompted the APS Fellows’ Forum to examine what might be at the root of the increase in fatalities. APS fellow Philip Baker is leading the work.
Baker said that the rise in fatalities was worrying and that APS wanted to understand what was causing this.
He said that currently discussions were purely anecdotal. “Data on construction output indicated that the output per worker has gone up in the previous period, which may suggest that people are working harder, which could lead us to think that maybe fatigue is an issue,” he said.
“We intend to engage with other institutions in the industry to see if we can identify what we can do better, to continue to bring the rate down.”
Less effective designing-out of risk
Baker said that the current review of the implementation of the CDM regulations being conducted by the HSE could also throw light on the issue, as there was some suggestion that the application of CDM 2015 appeared to be resulting in less effective designing-out of risk than the previous revision.
The HSE figures published in November revealed there were three fatal injuries to members of the public in 2023/24. This is in comparison with the annual average of four fatalities over the five-year period 2019/20-2023/24p.
In the same period in construction, an estimated 47,000 workers reported sustaining a workplace non-fatal injury, or 2.4%, a rate that is statistically significantly higher than that for workers across all industries (1.7%).
In construction around 2.5 million working days (full-day equivalent) were lost each year due to workplace injury (17%) and work-related illness (83%). The HSE said this is equivalent to around 1.3 working days lost per worker, which is not statistically different from the all-industry level (1.1 days).
The total cost in 2022/23 is estimated at £1.4bn, accounting for 7% of the total cost of all work-related ill health and injury (£21.5bn).
