Britain is experiencing a growing crisis of work‑related stress, according to new Trades Union Congress (TUC) findings, with four in five union representatives identifying stress as one of the most pressing issues facing workers.
The TUC’s 15th biennial survey, covering more than 2,700 trade union safety representatives, shows that 79% now regard stress as a major hazard, the highest level recorded and well above any other workplace risk. The data suggests employers are frequently failing to recognise or address the dangers.
Stress is reported as the leading concern across every region and nearly all sectors, with particularly high levels in central government (80%), local government (66%), health (68%), education (74%) and the voluntary sector (71%).
Workload follows closely behind, cited by 60% of representatives, many of whom say that unmanageable demands are pushing stress to unprecedented heights.
The TUC notes that employers are still failing to include stress in risk assessments, with two‑thirds saying they are unaware of any assessment of stress‑related risks in their workplace, let alone steps to mitigate them.
These concerns are echoed in the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) 2024–25 statistics, which show cases of work‑related stress, depression or anxiety rising from 776,000 in 2023 to 964,000 in 2024. According to the HSE, published in November, 22.1 million working days were lost to work‑related stress in 2024–25.
Paul Nowak, general secretary at TUC, said: “These findings expose a growing national crisis. Stress is now entrenched as the biggest health and safety issue facing working people, and the situation is getting worse. No worker should find themselves lying awake at night from stress. But too many employers are ignoring the law, failing to assess stress risks, and piling impossible workloads onto staff. Workers are burning out, and they are paying with their health. Employers and managers need to do more to identify and reduce risks and to provide support to employees struggling to cope.”
The TUC is urging the government to enforce existing legal duties requiring employers to assess and prevent work‑related stress, and to increase funding for the HSE so it can properly investigate risks and carry out inspections.
It also wants employers to reduce excessive workloads, maintain safe staffing levels, and ensure safety reps have the rights and time needed to perform their roles effectively.
The union body is further calling for harassment and violence to be recognised as core health and safety issues, given their strong links to stress, and for such incidents to be reportable to the HSE.
This article is based on a piece written for Personnel Today
