RIDDOR 2024/25: Manual Handling Still a Leading Cause of UK Workplace Injury
The latest HSE figures show handling, lifting and carrying remain one of the top causes of non-fatal workplace injuries in Great Britain. Here is what the 2024/25 numbers tell us.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published its annual workplace injury and ill-health statistics for 2024/25 on 20 November 2025. The figures, drawn from RIDDOR reports submitted by employers and the Labour Force Survey, confirm a familiar pattern: manual handling continues to be one of the single biggest causes of injury at work in Great Britain.
The headline numbers
According to HSE's 2024/25 release:
- 680,000 workers sustained a non-fatal injury at work (self-reported, Labour Force Survey).
- 59,219 non-fatal injuries to employees were formally reported by employers under RIDDOR.
- 1.9 million working people were suffering from a work-related illness.
- 511,000 workers were suffering from a work-related musculoskeletal disorder (MSD).
- £22.9 billion is the estimated annual cost of workplace injury and ill-health (latest available, 2023/24).
Manual handling: the persistent leader
In HSE's Kind of accident statistics in Great Britain, 2025 report, "handling, lifting or carrying" remains one of the top three most commonly reported accident kinds for non-fatal injuries to employees, alongside slips, trips and falls on the same level and being struck by a moving object.
Combined with the 511,000 workers suffering from work-related MSDs, the data makes the same point year after year: how we move people and equipment at work is one of the most important safety issues UK employers face.
Why this matters in care environments
Health and social care is consistently one of the highest-risk sectors for manual handling injuries. Carers and nurses routinely:
- Reposition residents in profile beds.
- Use hoists and slings around bed frames cluttered with cables.
- Bend, twist and reach into awkward spaces beneath beds.
Every additional second spent untangling cables, moving plugs out of the way, or working around a trailing lead is a second where the risk of a strain, slip or trapped-finger injury goes up.
What the numbers should change
The 2024/25 statistics reinforce three priorities for any care provider:
- Design out the hazard. Cluttered, cable-strewn beds are a hazard you can remove with the right equipment.
- Train continuously. Manual handling competence decays without refreshers.
- Report and learn. RIDDOR reports are only useful if the lessons travel back to the floor.
Carlble was designed by a manual handling trainer for exactly this reason — to remove a small, daily, avoidable hazard from one of the most physically demanding jobs in the country.
Sources: HSE, "Health and Safety statistics: 2024 to 2025 annual release" (20 November 2025); HSE, "Kind of accident statistics in Great Britain, 2025"; HSE, "Non-fatal injuries at work in Great Britain".