This page sets out what HSE's published statistics say about warehousing, haulage and logistics. Every figure is quoted as HSE publishes it, with the document and page beside it. We have not re-cut or combined anything.
HSE's preferred measure of non-fatal injury is the Labour Force Survey, because employer reporting under RIDDOR is known to be incomplete. Its eight-year average by sub-sector:
| Sub-sector | Self-reported non-fatal injury rate per 100,000 workers |
|---|---|
| Post and courier | 3,570 (3.6%) |
| Warehousing | 2,610 (2.6%) |
| Road haulage | 2,060 (2.1%) |
| Transport (passenger and other) | 1,080 (1.1%) |
| Transportation and storage, whole sector | 2,100 (2.1%) |
| All industries | 1,710 (1.7%) |
Source: HSE, Transportation and storage statistics in Great Britain 2025, p. 20 (LFS, average 2017/18–2024/25). 95% confidence intervals are wide for sub-sectors; see the source chart.
HSE also gives a separate, shorter-period comparison for the transportation and storage sector as a whole, not its sub-sectors. Over 2022/23–2024/25 the sector's rate was 2,430 per 100,000 (2.4%) against 1,780 (1.8%) for all industries, statistically significantly higher. On that same chart, manufacturing is 2,110 (2.1%) and construction 2,500 (2.5%). The two charts use different periods, so the sub-sector figures above should not be set against these.
Source: as above, p. 19 (LFS, average 2022/23–2024/25).
In numbers rather than rates: around 40,000 workers in transportation and storage sustain a non-fatal injury each year, and 24% of those injuries result in more than seven days' absence.
Employers reported 7,698 non-fatal injuries to employees in transportation and storage under RIDDOR in 2024/25 (provisional): 1,929 specified injuries (25%) and 5,769 over-seven-day injuries (75%).
The specified injuries, the serious ones, break down by kind:
| Accident kind, specified injuries in transportation and storage | Share |
|---|---|
| Slips, trips or falls on same level | 45% |
| Falls from a height | 20% |
| Struck by moving, including flying or falling, object | 10% |
| Struck by moving vehicle | 6% |
| Injured while handling, lifting or carrying | 6% |
| Strike against something fixed or stationary | 5% |
| Contact with moving machinery | 2% |
Source: HSE, Transportation and storage statistics in Great Britain 2025, p. 22 (RIDDOR, average 2022/23–2024/25p). Kinds shown that account for 1.5% or more.
Across all industries, the picture for all employer-reported non-fatal injuries is similar: slips, trips and falls 30%, handling 17%, struck by object 10%, acts of violence 10%, falls from height 8%, struck by moving vehicle 2%.
Source: HSE, Kind of accident statistics in Great Britain 2025, Figure 2 (RIDDOR, 2024/25p).
A different list.
Sources: HSE, Transportation and storage statistics in Great Britain 2025, pp. 17–18; Kind of accident statistics in Great Britain 2025, p. 7.
So in the sector most exposed to workplace vehicles, vehicles are 6% of serious injuries and 27% of deaths. Slips are 45% of serious injuries and a negligible share of deaths. The injury log a warehouse keeps is an honest record of its injuries and a poor guide to what will kill someone there.
The injury log a warehouse keeps is an honest record of its injuries and a poor guide to what will kill someone there.
Because the two risks are managed with different evidence. Slips and handling injuries are frequent enough that a site's own log shows the pattern: the wet floor by the dock, the heavy pick on the top shelf. Vehicle risk is not. A site may run for years with no vehicle injury at all, while forklifts and pedestrians cross paths at the same aisle end on every shift.
HSE's guidance for the sector, Warehousing and storage (HSG76) and A guide to workplace transport safety (HSG136), is built around that fact: segregate people and vehicles, design the layout so the interaction does not happen, and check that the controls are still in place. The check is the part the injury log cannot do, because the injuries have not happened yet.
HSE estimates the cost of work-related injury and ill health in transportation and storage at £1.4 billion for 2023/24 (95% confidence interval £955m to £1,937m), 6% of the £22.9 billion all-industry total, with around 2.3 million working days lost each year, equivalent to about 1.5 days per worker.
Source: HSE, Transportation and storage statistics in Great Britain 2025, pp. 24–25.
The rate says warehousing is more dangerous than the average workplace and more dangerous than haulage. The injury breakdown says most of that excess shows up as slips, trips and handling, which a site can see in its own records and manage directly. The fatality breakdown says the thing most likely to kill someone is a vehicle, and that this risk leaves almost no trace in the injury data until it does.
The practical question is therefore the one the national figures cannot answer for any individual site: how often do your vehicles and your people come close, where, and on which shift? That is not in HSE's tables. It is on the site, every day, whether or not anyone is counting.
HSE's Labour Force Survey estimate is 2,610 non-fatal injuries per 100,000 workers a year, or 2.6% of the workforce, averaged over 2017/18 to 2024/25. That compares with 2,060 (2.1%) for road haulage, 3,570 (3.6%) for post and courier, and 1,710 (1.7%) across all industries.
Fifteen workers in 2024/25 (provisional), against a five-year average of 13, plus 29 members of the public. The fatal injury rate is 0.87 per 100,000 workers, around 2.2 times the all-industry rate.
Slips, trips and falls on the same level, which account for 45% of specified (serious) injuries in transportation and storage, followed by falls from height at 20%. Handling injuries make up a large share of the less serious, over-seven-day category.
HSE's Kind of accident statistics put being struck by a moving vehicle at 27% of worker deaths in transportation and storage over 2020/21 to 2024/25. HSE's sector report, for the same period, puts being struck by a moving or falling object at 27%. The two are reported in separate documents and HSE does not combine them.
No. HSE's "struck by moving vehicle" category includes forklifts alongside all other vehicles at work. HSE does not publish a forklift-specific count in its headline statistics.
Fatal injury counts are close to complete. Non-fatal RIDDOR figures are known to be substantially under-reported, which is why HSE prefers the Labour Force Survey. Sub-sector rates are averaged over eight years because annual samples are small, and HSE publishes confidence intervals with them. All figures here are quoted directly from the HSE documents in the sources box.
Published 27 October 2026 · Last updated 27 October 2026
This piece starts from the ideas set out in How We Think About Safety.
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