Stress at Work: What the Latest HSE Figures Mean, and What Employers Should Do About It

The numbers

HSE’s latest annual statistics, published in November 2025, show that an estimated 1.9 million workers in Great Britain were suffering from work-related ill health in 2024/25. Of those, 964,000 were dealing with stress, depression or anxiety caused or made worse by their work, continuing an upward trend over recent years.

Stress, depression and anxiety now account for around half of all work-related ill health, and an estimated 22.1 million working days were lost to them. Launching the figures, HSE’s Chief Executive Sarah Albon said the statistics show that workplace health challenges persist, particularly around mental health.

What work-related stress actually is

HSE defines stress as the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed on them. Pressure on its own isn’t a bad thing. Many people work well with a reasonable amount of challenge. Stress happens when the demands outweigh a person’s ability to cope, and it lasts.

Common signs include changes in mood or behaviour, withdrawal from colleagues, increased mistakes, more sickness absence and lateness, and people working longer hours without getting more done.

What HSE is doing about it

HSE’s main response is its long-running Working Minds campaign, which aims to help employers prevent work-related stress before it causes harm. It offers free resources including guidance, posters, a podcast and an app, and organisations can become Working Minds Champions.

In January 2026, HSE added new guidance, Understanding the impact of stress at work, explaining how stress develops, how it affects health, absence and productivity, and why acting early matters. HSE is clear that employers should be proactive rather than waiting for someone to go off sick.

At the heart of HSE’s approach are its Management Standards, which set out six areas of work design that, if not properly managed, are linked to poor health and productivity:

HSE also provides a stress risk assessment template and a Stress Talking Toolkit to help managers start conversations with their teams.

What the law requires

Stress is not a “soft” issue in law. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, employers have a general duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees, and health includes mental health.

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to assess the risks to their workers, and that includes the risk of work-related stress. Where the risk is significant, employers must take reasonable steps to reduce it. Businesses with five or more employees must also record the significant findings of their risk assessment.

Why construction is particularly at risk

Construction combines many of the factors HSE links to stress: tight programmes, long hours, travel and time away from home, uncertain work, physically demanding tasks and a culture that has historically discouraged people from talking about how they feel.

The consequences can be devastating. Office for National Statistics data has shown construction workers to be nearly four times more likely to die by suicide than workers in other sectors, with 507 construction workers in England and Wales taking their own lives in 2021 alone.

On a solar or roofing project, there’s an added layer. Stress affects concentration, judgement and reaction times, and when the work is at height or near live electrics, a lapse in focus can have serious consequences.

Practical steps for employers

• Include stress in your risk assessments. Use the six Management Standards as a checklist and talk to your people about where the pressure really comes from.
• Plan realistic programmes. Unrealistic deadlines push people into long hours and shortcuts. Good planning is a wellbeing measure as much as a commercial one.
• Train people to spot the signs. Mental health first aiders and trained supervisors can pick up on changes early and point people towards support.
• Make it easy to speak up. Give people more than one way to raise a concern, including anonymously, and make sure they’re thanked rather than judged for doing so.
• Talk about it. Regular toolbox talks on mental health help normalise the conversation, especially in environments where people don’t usually open up.
• Review and follow up. Check whether your measures are working, and keep the conversation going rather than treating it as a one-off.

How we manage it on our sites

At Moralis, mental health and wellbeing is treated as seriously as any other hazard, because we’ve seen how quickly a psychological hazard can become a physical one. In practice, that means:

• Mental health first aiders on our sites, alongside physical first aiders.
• QR code posters that take people straight to an anonymous reporting page, covering hazards and near misses and also any other concern, including wellbeing.
• Toolbox talks dedicated solely to mental health, so everyone knows they can speak up and get support.
• Planning meetings with the teams doing the work, so programmes are realistic and people have a say in how the job is done.
• Being honest about our own workload too. Hours and capacity are treated as a health matter, not just a commercial one.

Through Moralis Associates, we also help other businesses build these arrangements into their own health and safety systems, in a way that’s proportionate to their size and genuinely used on site.