Lone Working: What Employers and Workers Need to Consider

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Lone working means working by yourself without close or direct supervision. It is legal and often perfectly safe, but the law requires employers to think about and deal with the health and safety risks before anyone is allowed to work alone. In practice that means assessing the risks, agreeing how you will keep in touch, training people properly and planning for emergencies.

This guide follows the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) leaflet INDG73, Protecting lone workers. If you would like a second pair of eyes on how your business assesses lone working, our consultancy team can help with workplace risk assessments.

What counts as lone working?

HSE defines a lone worker as “someone who works by themselves without close or direct supervision”. Lone workers exist in every sector and include people who:

work alone at a fixed base, for example in shops, petrol stations, factories, warehouses or leisure centres
work separately from others on the same premises or outside normal hours, such as security staff, cleaners and maintenance and repair staff
work at home
work away from a fixed base, including construction, maintenance and repair workers, engineers, assessors and delivery drivers attending construction projects, care workers visiting homes, and estate agents or sales representatives

On a construction project, that could be the engineer commissioning plant after the site has emptied, the security officer on a night shift or the surveyor walking a vacant building on their own.

Is it legal to work alone?

Yes. There is no general ban on working alone, and HSE says it will often be safe to do so. What the law does require is that the employer thinks about and deals with any health and safety risks before people work alone. The duties come from the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and our guide to what the Health and Safety at Work Act covers explains the general duties in plain English.

The employer is responsible for all their workers, including contractors, volunteers and self-employed people they engage, and those responsibilities cannot be transferred to anyone else, including the person working alone.

Do you need a separate lone working risk assessment?

No. HSE is clear that there is no legal requirement for a specific, separate risk assessment for lone workers. You do, however, have a duty to include the risks to lone workers in your general risk assessment and to avoid or control them. If you employ five or more workers, you must write down what you find. That record should include the hazards, how they may harm people and what you are already doing to control the risks.

HSE says your approach must include:

involving workers when you consider the risks and the controls
removing risks where possible, or putting control measures in place, such as choosing work equipment that one person can use safely
instruction, training and supervision
reviewing the assessment periodically and after significant changes such as new staff, processes or equipment
consulting the other employer when a lone worker is working at their workplace

When should someone not work alone?

The risk assessment should decide the right level of supervision. HSE gives examples of high risk work where at least one other person may need to be present: work in a confined space (where a supervisor and someone dedicated to rescue may be needed), work near exposed live electricity conductors, and diving operations, vehicles carrying explosives or fumigation work.

Lone workers may also need to be accompanied at first if they are new to a job, undergoing training, doing a job that presents specific risks or dealing with new situations.

What employers need to consider

INDG73 groups the questions to ask into a few areas. This table pulls them together:

Area	What to ask
The worker	How experienced are they in the role and in working alone? Have they had relevant training? Are they more vulnerable, for example young, pregnant, disabled or a trainee? Is there a medical reason they should not work alone?
Environment and equipment	Does the work involve operating equipment alone or lifting objects too large for one person? Is the site rural or isolated? Are they going into someone else’s home or premises? Is there a safe way in and out outside normal hours?
Communication	Does the worker have a reliable way to keep in contact and to call for help?
The work itself	Is it a security role with authority over customers? Does it involve handling cash, asking for payment or removing goods or property?
Emergencies	What happens in a foreseeable emergency such as fire, equipment failure, illness or an accident?

Manual handling deserves particular attention because there is nobody to share a load. Our guide to what TILE stands for in manual handling shows how to break that part of the assessment down.

Keeping in touch with lone workers

HSE says effective communication is essential and that any monitoring system must be well understood by workers, with clear procedures behind it. The options it lists include:

supervisors periodically visiting and observing people working alone
pre-agreed intervals of regular contact using phones, radios, email and similar, bearing in mind the worker’s understanding of English
devices designed to raise the alarm in an emergency, operated manually or automatically
a robust system to confirm that the lone worker has returned to base or home once the work is finished

Whatever you choose, HSE says you should test the technology and emergency procedures regularly. A check in time that nobody follows up is not a control.

Violence, stress and wellbeing

Lone working does not automatically mean a higher risk of violence, but HSE says it makes workers more vulnerable because there is no colleague nearby. Risks include late or early shifts, roles with authority over customers, contact with people affected by alcohol or drugs, and carrying money or valuable equipment. Training in personal safety, including conflict resolution, can help people recognise and avoid risky situations.

Working alone can also affect stress and mental health. People who are cut off from managers and colleagues can feel isolated, so HSE recommends regular meetings, including lone workers in team updates, social events and consultation, and making sure they receive any training that others get. Some employers also appoint trained mental health first aiders; Target Zero runs a Mental Health First Aid England course for that role.

Training, first aid and emergencies

Because lone workers usually cannot ask a more experienced colleague, HSE says extra training may be appropriate. Set clear limits on what can and cannot be done while working alone, and make sure workers are competent for the job, trained in any technology you provide and able to recognise when to seek advice.

Emergency procedures should be in place and practised. Your risk assessment may show that some lone workers should carry first aid equipment or need first aid training, including how to give first aid to themselves. If that applies to your team, see our Emergency First Aid at Work course.

What lone workers need to do

Like any worker, a lone worker must take care of their own health and safety and that of anyone affected by what they do, and co-operate with their employer. If you have concerns, HSE advises raising them with your employer, a manager or supervisor, or a health and safety representative (HSE advice for lone workers).

Some employers ask lone workers to make dynamic risk assessments on the spot. HSE says this is not a substitute for a proper risk assessment, and that workers asked to do it must be trained, must consider the range of controls available and must get support for their decisions.

FAQs

What is lone working?

Lone working is any work done by someone on their own without close or direct supervision. It includes people at a fixed base, people working out of hours, homeworkers and mobile workers such as engineers and delivery drivers.

Is lone working legal in the UK?

Yes. It is often safe to work alone, but the employer must assess and control the health and safety risks before anyone does so, and those responsibilities cannot be passed to the lone worker.

Do I need a lone working risk assessment?

You do not need a separate one. HSE says the risks to lone workers must be included in your general risk assessment, and if you employ five or more workers the findings must be written down.

What should a lone working procedure cover?

Based on HSE guidance, it should cover who may work alone and on what tasks, the limits of what can be done alone, how and when workers keep in contact, how you confirm they have finished safely, emergency and first aid arrangements, and training.

How often should you check in with a lone worker?

INDG73 does not set a fixed interval. It asks for pre-agreed intervals of regular contact, set according to the risk, plus a reliable way to confirm the worker has returned to base or home.

Lone working is manageable when the risks are thought through before the work starts. If you want help building lone working into your workplace risk assessments, talk to our consultancy team about risk assessments or call 0333 444 0018. Target Zero has more than 10,000 verified reviews on Reviews.io and a 4.9 rating on Trustpilot.