Injuries: workplace injuries

There are two sources of data for the UK and Scotland on injuries occurring in the workplace:

1. Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 2013, under which fatal and defined non-fatal injuries to workers and members of the public are reported by employers. Certain types of work-related injury are not reportable under RIDDOR, in particular fatalities and injuries to the armed forces and injuries from work-related road traffic collisions.
2. The Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is a national survey run by the Office for National Statistics. The Health and Safety Executive publishes analyses of this data for work-related ill health and injuries.

The workplace injury data from these sources are summarised for Great Britain in the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) publication Health and safety at work, and for Scotland specifically in Workplace health and safety statistics for Scotland. Details for Scotland are available from data tables:

• RIDREG: RIDDOR reported injuries by country, region, and unitary or local authority. (Direct link)
• Workplace injuries - Country and region (LFSINJREG), produced using Labour Force Survey data. (Direct link)

Key points:

• In recent years, the fatal injury rate in Scotland has been consistently higher than England. The HSE estimates that this may be related (but not limited to) a greater proportion of workers being employed in higher risk industry sectors or higher risk occupations, compared with Great Britain as a whole.
• There was an estimated 43,000 workplace non-fatal injuries in Scotland each year between 2019/20 and 2021/22. 
• The latest 3-year average rate of non-fatal injuries per 100,000 workers was higher for males (2,010 per 100,000) than females (1,550 per 100,000) between 2019/20 and 2021/22.