Co-working spaces: who is responsible for safety?

When a cleaner finds the fire exit stacked with parcels, whose job is it to clear the route? If a care coordinator trips over another member’s cable, who reports the injury? “Ask the operator” is not enough from your manager. Renting a desk does not let an employer rent out its responsibility for you.

This guide explains Great Britain’s safety law as at 1 October 2026. Northern Ireland has separate legislation and regulators, explained below.

What to do today

1. Get out of immediate danger. Do not wait at an unsafe workstation for an email reply. Tell your manager why you moved, once safe.
2. Send one written report to both organisations. Give the location, hazard and people affected. Ask the operator what it will fix and your employer what safe work it will arrange meanwhile.
3. Keep the evidence. Save messages, incident records and photographs you can take safely. Record lost shifts or other treatment after you raised the problem.
4. Bring in a representative. Speak to your union’s safety rep. If you are not a member, consider a union covering your sector. Unite and GMB cover cleaning and security roles; UNISON covers many care and public-service roles. Ask the union which branch can support your workplace.
5. Escalate to the regulator. Contact council environmental health for most office hubs, or the fire and rescue service about escape routes and fire precautions. Give the address and your earlier reports. A complaint does not guarantee a visit.
6. Protect your claim deadline. If you lose shifts, pay or your job, contact Acas, Citizens Advice, a law centre or your union promptly. In Northern Ireland, use the Labour Relations Agency. Ask about early conciliation; do not let an internal investigation consume your time limit.

Who is responsible for your safety?

The duties overlap. That matters when the operator and your employer each point at the other.

The operator’s premises duty comes from section 4 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Someone controlling non-domestic premises made available for work must take the measures reasonably required of them to keep the premises, access, exits and equipment provided safe. The duty depends on what they control. A landlord retaining maintenance responsibilities may owe duties alongside the operator.

Your employer’s duty comes from section 2. It must protect its employees’ health, safety and welfare at work so far as reasonably practicable. Paying for a hub membership does not transfer that duty. It must assess the working arrangement, organise first aid and check your workstation where screen-work rules apply.

Under section 3, employers must also protect non-employees affected by their work, so far as reasonably practicable. That includes the cleaner employed by another company and the freelancer at the next desk. A self-employed person’s duty depends on whether their work may put someone else at risk or falls within a prescribed activity.

Regulation 11 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires employers sharing a workplace to co-operate, co-ordinate safety measures and share information about risks their work creates. It also covers self-employed people subject to the relevant duties. A shared building needs shared arrangements, not separate policies that nobody reads.

As an employee, you must take reasonable care of yourself and others and co-operate with your employer under section 7. Keep exits clear, follow evacuation instructions and report faults. That does not make you responsible for repairing the building.

What the operator must do

The operator must deal with the risks it controls. The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 place duties on employers and people controlling workplaces. They cover ventilation, reasonable temperature, lighting, space, toilets, washing facilities, drinking water and safe traffic routes.

The familiar temperature figures are guidance, not statutory cut-offs. HSE guidance normally suggests at least 16°C, or 13°C where work involves strenuous physical effort. Its space guidance uses 11 cubic metres per person as a starting point. A room measuring 60 square metres with a 2.4 metre ceiling has 144 cubic metres, enough for about 13 people on that calculation. Furniture and the work being done may mean it needs more space. It is not permission to squeeze in 13 desks regardless of layout.

Equipment provided for work must be suitable and maintained. Report a broken chair, damaged printer cable or faulty kitchen appliance to the operator. Your employer also needs to know if the fault makes your work unsafe.

Fire duties can overlap too. In England and Wales, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places duties on the responsible person and others with control. Depending on the arrangements, that can include the operator, employers using the space and a landlord. They must co-operate over fire risk assessment, alarms, escape routes and evacuation. Scotland and Northern Ireland use separate fire legislation.

Ask for an induction that covers emergency contacts, escape routes and how to report a fault. A fob and a Wi-Fi password are not a safety induction.

What your employer must still do

If your employer sends you to a hub, ask how it has checked the place and what happens when something goes wrong.

A risk assessment for the actual arrangement

Regulation 3 requires a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. An employer with five or more employees must record its significant findings and the groups particularly at risk. Count the employer’s whole workforce when applying that threshold. A written health and safety policy is also required at that size. Smaller employers still have to assess risks.

A workstation you can use safely

The Display Screen Equipment Regulations cover employees who habitually use screens as a significant part of normal work. Your employer must assess your workstation and reduce the risks, including when you hot-desk. Tell it about a chair that cannot be adjusted, a screen set too low or pain that follows a day’s work. The operator’s furniture does not replace an assessment of your needs. For detail, see our guide to back pain and workstation adjustments.

First aid that is available when you work

The First-Aid Regulations require your employer to provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel for its employees. It can agree shared provision with the operator, but must check that the arrangement meets its needs. A box behind a locked reception desk is little use to the night cleaner. The assessment decides what provision is needed; there is no statutory shopping list for a first aid kit.

A response to harassment by other members

Since 26 October 2024, employers have had to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees. They need to consider risks from third parties, including other members of a hub. Report the conduct to your employer as well as the operator. The government’s updated timetable schedules the stronger “all reasonable steps” duty and the new third-party harassment duty for 30 October 2026. Those changes are not yet in force at this guide’s review date.

If you are the freelancer at the next desk

If your work may risk someone else’s safety, section 3 duties can apply to you even without employees. That might mean equipment creating a trip hazard or substances exposing people nearby. Prescribed activities are covered regardless of the general low-risk exemption. Do not treat “self-employed” as a safety waiver.

Since 1 October 2015, low-risk work with no employees and no risk to others is generally exempt. That does not remove the operator’s obligations to you or prevent injury reporting. The premises controller reports a self-employed person’s specified or over-seven-day injury at the hub.

Fire and evacuation

Ask the operator where the exits and assembly point are, and tell your employer if you cannot use the evacuation arrangements safely. Disabled staff may need individual arrangements. A cleaner carrying supplies, a receptionist working alone and a delivery driver collecting parcels all need a safe route through the building.

If you are injured, who reports it

RIDDOR is the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. It covers specified work-related incidents, not every accident. HSE’s reporting guidance distinguishes who must submit the report:

• Your employer reports reportable injuries to its employees, wherever they are working.
• The person controlling the premises reports specified injuries and over-seven-day injuries to self-employed people working there.
• For non-workers, a work-related accident causing an injury is reportable if the person is taken directly from the scene to hospital for treatment. A precautionary check without an injury is not the same thing.
• The person controlling the premises reports relevant dangerous occurrences there. These are defined events, not every near miss.

An over-seven-day injury means you cannot work or perform your normal duties for more than seven consecutive days. Exclude the day of the accident but include weekends and rest days. The responsible person must report within 15 days of the accident.

Tell your employer and the operator promptly and ask them to record the accident. Keep your own evidence: dates, photographs taken safely, witnesses, medical records and copies of messages. If you are agency staff, tell the agency and the business directing your work. HSE says reporting responsibility must be assigned according to the actual employment relationship, not assumed from the label on your contract.

A RIDDOR report is not a compensation claim and does not decide who was at fault. For advice about recovering losses after an injury, ask your union or a solicitor to examine the employer’s and operator’s roles. Do not accept being passed between them as a legal answer.

Who can make the workspace act?

For most office-based co-working spaces in Great Britain, contact the local council’s environmental health team. HSE’s allocation guidance explains which workplaces it enforces itself. Describe the premises and the work being done; a mixed-use building may need a different allocation. For fire-safety concerns, contact the local fire and rescue service. In an immediate emergency, call the emergency services rather than waiting for a complaint response.

Do not confuse a safety complaint with a RIDDOR report. If you are an injured employee, tell the responsible person and ask whether they have reported it. If they have not, raise the concern with the enforcing authority. You do not submit the employer’s statutory report yourself.

HSE’s Fee for Intervention applies where HSE is the enforcing authority and identifies a material breach. It is not a general charge for council inspections or fire-service enforcement.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland uses the Health and Safety at Work Order 1978 and separate RIDDOR regulations. Contact HSENI or the district council about workplace safety. The employment-rights provisions discussed below are Great Britain provisions; Northern Ireland has its own protections under the Employment Rights Order 1996. Do not assume the Employment Rights Act 2025 timetable applies there. See our guide to employment law in Northern Ireland.

Can you refuse to work there?

There is protection for leaving danger, but it is not a blanket right to walk out over any fault. Under section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, workers, including employees, are protected against detriment for leaving or proposing to leave a workplace where they reasonably believe danger is serious and imminent and they cannot reasonably be expected to avert it. They are also protected for refusing to return while that danger persists, and for taking appropriate protective steps in serious and imminent danger.

For employees, dismissal for the protected reasons can be automatically unfair under section 100, without a qualifying service period. That dismissal right is not extended to every non-employee worker. Agency staff should get advice about their status and which organisation acted against them. Sections 44 and 100 also protect specified safety activities and certain reports of harmful conditions; not every complaint satisfies those statutory conditions.

Floodwater reaching electrics or falling ceiling material could justify an immediate move to safety. Whether a blocked exit creates serious and imminent danger depends on the circumstances. Do not put yourself at risk to collect evidence or wait for permission. Once safe, tell your manager what you reasonably believed, what you did and that you are available for safe alternative work.