HSE reported 14,927 inspections in its provisional 2025/26 performance results, against a target of 14,000. Its latest published annual accounts cover 2024/25, when operating expenditure was £310 million. This page distinguishes inspection activity, staffing and spending, which have different reporting periods and definitions.
The figures below come from HSE’s annual accounts and published performance reports. HSE covers Great Britain; Northern Ireland has a separate regulator, and local authorities enforce health and safety in many workplaces. Inspection totals are activity counts, not a national probability of a workplace being inspected.
Key facts and figures
- 14,927 inspections were reported for 2025/26 in HSE’s provisional end-year KPI results.
- £310m was HSE’s total operating expenditure in 2024/25.
- £126m of income was generated by HSE in 2024/25.
- 2,986 full-time-equivalent staff were reported in the 2024/25 accounts, a net increase of 64 FTE.
- 3,655 inspections were reported for April–June 2026, against a quarterly target of 3,619.
- 14,000 inspections are the annual target for 2026/27; a target is not a completed count.
- 2,700+ intelligence-led inspections followed specific concerns or reports in 2024/25.
- 83% of relevant fatal investigations were completed within twelve months of primacy in the provisional 2025/26 results (80 of 96).
Checked on 15 October 2026. The latest end-year inspection figures are provisional for 2025/26, with a separate April–June 2026 update. Staffing and spending below are from the 2024/25 annual accounts.
How many HSE inspectors are there in the UK?
HSE’s 2024/25 accounts report 2,986 full-time-equivalent staff across the organisation. This is not a frontline inspector count. Regulatory, scientific and support roles should not be treated as interchangeable when describing inspection capacity.
Staff numbers must be compared using consistent categories and dates. Changes in HSE’s functions and organisation can affect a trend, so total staffing alone does not establish whether a particular inspection team has grown or shrunk.
Nor can an inspector headcount be converted directly into a business’s chance of inspection. The type of work, enforcement responsibilities, intelligence and risk-based priorities influence how resources are used.
How many workplaces does the HSE inspect each year?
HSE’s provisional 2025/26 KPI report records 14,927 inspections against a target of 14,000. The 2024/25 annual accounts reported more than 13,200 inspections, including over 7,000 focused on work-related health and over 2,700 intelligence-led inspections.
These are reported inspection activities, not necessarily distinct workplaces. Health-focused and intelligence-led descriptions can overlap and must not be added as if they were separate parts of a total. The table keeps the publication and period explicit.
| Inspection measure | Volume | Period and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Completed inspections | 14,927 | 2025/26 provisional HSE KPI result |
| Inspection target | 14,000 | 2025/26 annual target; 107% achieved |
| Completed inspections | 3,655 | April–June 2026; provisional quarterly result |
| Work-related health inspections | 7,000+ | 2024/25 annual accounts; not a distinct-site total |
| Intelligence-led inspections | 2,700+ | 2024/25 annual accounts; categories can overlap |
An inspection is not the same as an enforcement outcome. A visit that finds a compliant workplace closes without further action; a visit that finds a material breach may generate advice, a notice, a Fee for Intervention invoice or, rarely, a prosecution. Those enforcement outputs are covered on our HSE enforcement statistics page — here the focus is on the volume of inspection activity itself.
What is the HSE’s annual budget?
HSE’s 2024/25 annual accounts report £310 million in operating expenditure and £126 million of generated income. Expenditure, income and government funding are different accounting measures; these totals should not be presented as a detailed departmental cost breakdown without the relevant accounts tables.
Funding supports inspection, investigation and HSE’s wider functions. The overall spending total does not isolate the cost of proactive inspection or establish how much is available for a specific sector.
How many people work at the HSE?
The 2024/25 accounts report 2,986 full-time-equivalent staff, with a net increase of 64 FTE. This is an organisation-wide measure covering different functions, not a count of people conducting workplace inspections.
Use role-specific and consistently defined figures to compare staffing over time. A change in total FTE should not be described as an equal change in the number of inspectors or inspections.
How should HSE funding and performance be compared?
A valid funding comparison needs the same accounting measure, organisational scope and price basis in each year. Cash changes are not the same as changes after inflation. The latest official figures below provide clearly dated reference points without combining incompatible historical estimates.
Investigation performance also uses a different denominator from the annual count of fatal injuries. The fatal-investigation measure concerns investigations due for completion, timed from HSE receiving primacy; it is not the proportion of that year’s deaths investigated.
| Official measure | Figure | Period and definition |
|---|---|---|
| Operating expenditure | £310m | 2024/25 annual accounts |
| Income generated | £126m | 2024/25 annual accounts |
| Organisation-wide staffing | 2,986 FTE | 2024/25 annual accounts |
| Net staffing increase | 64 FTE | 2024/25 annual accounts |
| Fatal investigations completed on time | 80 of 96 (83%) | 2025/26 provisional; within twelve months of primacy |
| Non-fatal investigations completed on time | 5,092 of 5,387 (95%) | 2025/26 provisional; within twelve months of incident |
What do the latest inspection results show?
The provisional 2025/26 inspection total of 14,927 exceeded the annual 14,000 target. The subsequent April–June 2026 report recorded 3,655 inspections against a quarterly target of 3,619, or 101% of that target.
A single quarter should not be multiplied by four and presented as a completed annual result. The 2026/27 annual target remains 14,000; final delivery will be reported separately.
HSE targets its work using risk and intelligence. The figures do not provide a random sample of all businesses or a like-for-like long-term series of unannounced visits to each sector.
How likely is it that the HSE will inspect my business?
The published total cannot establish the probability for a particular business. Inspections are targeted rather than random, workplaces may receive more than one visit, and many premises fall under local-authority enforcement rather than HSE.
Risk priorities, complaints, intelligence and incidents can lead to regulatory contact. Whether an incident is investigated depends on the regulator’s criteria; not every RIDDOR report automatically produces an inspection.
Plan around the duty to assess and control risks, not the likelihood of a visit. An inspector may examine relevant assessments, maintenance, training and actual working conditions. No particular template or five-step wording guarantees compliance.
Why does inspection capacity matter?
HSE provisionally recorded 126 worker fatal injuries in Great Britain in 2025/26. Separately, estimated working days lost to work-related illness and injury were 40.1 million in 2024/25, and the estimated societal cost of new cases was £22.9 billion for 2023/24. These measures describe different outcomes and periods.
These figures explain why effective prevention matters. They do not, by themselves, quantify the effect of a staffing or budget change on workplace harm.
Frequently asked questions
How many HSE inspectors are there in the UK?
The 2024/25 annual accounts report 2,986 full-time-equivalent staff across HSE. This is not an inspector headcount. Use a clearly defined, role-specific source for inspector numbers rather than treating all staff as inspectors.
How many workplaces does the HSE inspect each year?
HSE reported 14,927 inspections in provisional 2025/26 results. It subsequently reported 3,655 for April–June 2026. These are inspection activities, not necessarily unique workplaces, and do not include every local-authority or Northern Ireland inspection.
What is the HSE’s annual budget?
The latest published annual accounts used here report £310 million operating expenditure and £126 million income generated in 2024/25. These should be distinguished from grant-in-aid or a future budget allocation.
How likely is it that the HSE will inspect my business?
The totals do not give a reliable probability for an individual business. HSE targets inspections using risk and intelligence, and enforcement responsibility varies by workplace. The duty to manage risks applies regardless of whether a visit occurs.
Is the HSE’s workforce growing or shrinking?
The 2024/25 accounts reported a net increase of 64 full-time-equivalent staff to 2,986. This organisation-wide measure does not establish the trend in each inspector group or function.
Related guides
- HSE Enforcement Statistics UK: Fines, Prosecutions & Notices
- Risk Assessment Statistics UK: Compliance Facts & Data
- Work-Related Stress Statistics UK: HSE Facts & Data
- What is a risk assessment? A guide to UK workplace law
- The 5 steps to risk assessment: how to do one properly
Sources & references
- HSE — Annual report and accounts 2024/25, executive summary
- HSE — Provisional KPI results for 2025/26
- HSE — KPI report 2026/27, April–June
- HSE — Health and safety statistics
- HSE — Costs to Britain
The HSE may never knock — but the duty to assess and control risk applies to every UK employer regardless. Train your team to produce inspection-ready risk assessments with our RoSPA-approved, CPD-accredited course.
Explore the Risk Assessment Training course →
Mark writes about workplace health & safety, risk assessment and accredited online training for Risk Assessment Training, part of Online CPD Academy.