Decades of effort by the NASC and its member contractors have succeeded in driving down scaffolding accidents, but it’s essential that businesses hiring scaffold contractors only select those who work in accordance with NASC’s official guidelines if these safety improvements are to be sustained in the long-term.
Features
What half a century of data has taught us about preventing falls in scaffolding operations
By
on 11 September 2026
Falls remain the single largest cause of workplace death in Great Britain. In 2025/2026 they accounted for 25 lives lost across construction, which is about 25% of all workplace fatalities nationwide and the highest fatality count of any industry.
Against that backdrop, the safety record of member organisations of the National Access & Scaffolding Confederation (NASC) is worth examining. Scaffolders work at height daily, largely on structures that by definition are incomplete while being built. The work is, in principle, among the most exposed in construction, yet the accident data from NASC’s contractor membership tells a story of sustained, measurable improvement over four decades, with an 89% reduction in falls.
In the 1980s, there were, on average, two fatalities each year among an estimated workforce of 7,000 employed annually by NASC contractor members. By comparison, there have been only two fatalities in the last 10 years (2016-2025): an Advanced Scaffolding Inspector who died following a fall from height in 2024, and a driver who was killed in a lorry loader incident in 2021.
Since the 1980s, the NASC member workforce has grown by approximately 2.5 times, with an average of 17,000 people employed by member companies each year. While this represents a significant improvement in safety performance, every injury and fatality is one too many. The NASC and its members remain committed to collecting and analysing data, learning from incidents, and continually improving safety standards to reduce risk across the sector.
The 2026 NASC Safety Report, drawn from RIDDOR data submitted by NASC contractor members, recorded zero operative fatalities in 2025. It logged 82 reportable accidents across the combined membership workforce, equivalent to one RIDDOR incident for every 470,000 hours worked. The Accident Incident Rate for 2025 is 4.07 and the Accident Frequency Rate is 0.21, both comfortably below the 10-year averages of 5.2 and 0.26 and better than comparable construction figures.
Why the data exists
NASC, established in 1945, has been collecting accident figures from its members since 1975, which is 50 years of continuous data, gathered before anyone was obliged to gather it and long before the current stringent UK regulatory framework for work at height existed.
That decision has proved more consequential than it probably looked at the time. Half a century of consistent reporting produces something most sectors simply do not have: the ability to see whether an intervention worked. When guidance changes, the effect shows up in the numbers. When a category of accident stops falling, that also shows up in the figures.
The 2026 Safety Report notes that companies employing between one and 200 operatives contributed roughly 50% more RIDDOR reports than their share of the workforce would predict. Larger firms, particularly those above 200 operatives, reported proportionally fewer. The report suggests this may reflect differences in management structure, including dedicated safety teams, greater resources and higher supervision ratios. This is precisely the kind of finding that only long-running data can unveil.
For safety practitioners, the point is straightforward. Data collected because an industry wants to know the answer to certain questions tends to be more useful, and tends to be acted on.
The guidance that helped drive this change
The central document behind the reduction in falls is SG4 Preventing Falls in Scaffolding Operations. First introduced in the 1990s and updated every five years as the industry evolves, with the latest edition issued in 2022, it sets out the safe system of work for scaffolders working at height while erecting, altering and dismantling scaffolding.
SG4 is endorsed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). In his foreword, Mike Thomas of HSE emphasised the need to work in compliance with SG4 and states that “HSE will not hesitate to take enforcement action against employers and scaffolding operatives who fail to comply with their legal obligations and place themselves and others at risk of injury when working at height. Please ensure you read this guidance, which represents a sensible and proportionate approach to managing health and safety, and take the appropriate steps to turn the guidance contained herein into action.”
The guidance is published as a suite rather than a single document: an A4 guidance note, which is supported by a pocket-sized A6 user guide and two A2 site posters.
The management guide, SG4:22 Preventing Falls in Scaffolding Operations, is available as a free download from the NASC website to members and non-members alike. Related guidance covering temporary edge protection (TG1) and edge protection on open steelwork roofs and slab edges (SG27) is available from the NASC shop at minimal cost.
What this means for practitioners outside scaffolding
Competence within the scaffolding industry is readily verifiable. CISRS (Construction Industry Scaffolders Record Scheme) cardholders are recorded on a central database, allowing their card status to be easily verified. CISRS also uses NFC (near field communication) and by tapping the CISRS smartcard on any NFC-enabled device, the cardholder’s name, photo and categories/courses will appear, confirming authenticity.
Training is available through a range of CISRS-approved training providers, ensuring a consistent industry standard supported by NASC and the wider scaffolding sector.
NASC recommends you specify scaffolders must work in compliance with SG4 in your contract/scaffolding specification. SG39 Guidance on Appointing a Scaffolding Contractor, and its guide, are free to download from the NASC website.
No room for complacency
Alan Harris, chair of NASC’s Health and Safety Committee, has been clear that the latest accident figures are not a finish line. Training support remains a priority, particularly as smaller companies continue to join. Manual handling, slips and trips, and falls from height remain the standing focus, with renewed attention on the prevention of falling materials throughout 2026.
Scaffolding’s own safety record shows that improvement is possible, but only through sustained effort. It has taken decades of data collection, guidance written for the people doing the work,
and a willingness to publish findings that were not always comfortable.
The wider construction industry continues to face significant challenges, with around 35 workers still losing their lives each year in falls from height. None of the lessons learned through scaffolding are unique to the sector, and many could be applied more broadly across construction.
NASC guidance, including the free SG4 download, is available at:
nasc.org.uk
FEATURES
What half a century of data has taught us about preventing falls in scaffolding operations
By NASC (National Access & Scaffolding Confederation) on 11 September 2026
Decades of effort by the NASC and its member contractors have succeeded in driving down scaffolding accidents, but it’s essential that businesses hiring scaffold contractors only select those who work in accordance with NASC’s official guidelines if these safety improvements are to be sustained in the long-term.
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