Construction industry

There have been significant reductions in the number and rate of injury over the last 20 years or more. Nevertheless, construction remains a high risk industry. Although it accounts for only about 5% of the employees in Britain it still accounts for 27% of fatal injuries to employees and 9% of reported major injuries.

In 2010/11 there were:

• 50 fatal injuries to workers. 18 of these fatalities were to the self-employed. This compares with an average of 61 over the previous five years – including an average of 19 to the self-employed (RIDDOR);
• the number of employees who were fatally injured has reduced by two-thirds compared with 20 years ago. This is roughly in line with the reduction in other industries (RIDDOR);
• reported non-fatal injuries have fallen by over a third and rates have fallen by a quarter since 2007/08 (RIDDOR);
• over 5 000 occupational cancer cases are estimated to arise each year as a result of past exposures in the construction sector (Cancer Burden Study, 2010);
• an estimated 36 000 new cases of work-related ill health with rates of musculoskeletal disorder significantly higher than average (LFS);
• about 2.3 million working days were lost (1.1 days per worker) due to self-reported work-related illness or workplace injury. Just over three quarters of this was due to health problems and only one quarter to injuries (LFS).

Twenty year trend in worker fatalities