Health and safety for home and hybrid workers

A laptop on the kitchen table, a chair that leaves your back aching, a manager who says homeworking equipment is your problem. Working from home does not transfer your employer’s safety duties to you. Ask for an assessment and the changes it identifies. Necessary safety equipment is not a personal shopping expense.

What your employer owes you at home

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 requires employers to protect employees’ health, safety and welfare so far as reasonably practicable. Homeworking is covered. HSE confirms that employers have the same safety responsibilities for home and hybrid workers as for people in the workplace.

The duty follows the work. It covers a care coordinator answering calls from home as well as an office employee on regular home days.

Employees must take reasonable care and cooperate under section 7 of the Act. Completing a form helps your employer assess the risks. It does not make you responsible for its failure to act.

The home risk assessment: what it must cover

Every employer must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of risks to employees under regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. There is no homeworking exemption.

Employers with five or more employees must record the significant findings and any groups particularly at risk. Smaller employers still have to assess the risks. The threshold is employees, not desks or homeworking days.

The assessment should cover work-related stress, screen equipment and posture, and your working environment. That includes electrical hazards, trips, escape in an emergency and how to get help when working alone.

1. Ask for the assessment. Tell your manager which days and tasks you work from home. Ask for the homeworking and workstation assessment, plus instructions for completing it.
2. Describe the actual setup. Note your chair, screen position, lighting, space and any pain. A photo can help if you are comfortable sharing one. Explain anything that makes the work difficult, including isolation or caring responsibilities.
3. Ask for actions and dates. Request the equipment or work changes needed, who will arrange them and when. Ask what safe arrangement you should use while you wait.
4. Keep the evidence. Save the form, replies and records of symptoms or extra hours. Copy your union safety rep and follow up if nothing changes.

A home visit is not a legal requirement. A trained self-assessment that your employer reviews can be enough, provided it identifies the risks properly. A tick-box form that ignores the pain you have reported is no answer.

For the wider framework see Health and safety law: what does my employer have to do?

Chair, screen and setup: who pays

Regular laptop work needs more than a device and a Wi-Fi connection. If raising the screen helps your neck but makes typing awkward, the assessment needs to address both problems.

The Display Screen Equipment Regulations 1992 define a “user” as an employee who habitually uses screens as a significant part of their normal work. HSE describes covered screen work as daily use for continuous periods of an hour or more. Permanent homeworking and routine hybrid working are covered; occasional short email checks alone do not make you a DSE user.

If you use a workstation at home and another in the office, the assessment must cover both. Hot-desking does not remove that duty.

Your employer must analyse the workstation and reduce the risks. It must also plan screen breaks or changes of activity and give you information and training about safe screen work.

HSE says equipment identified as necessary by the assessment cannot be charged to you. Your employer cannot turn required safety kit into a deduction from your wages.

That does not mean everyone is entitled to a new desk and chair. Your existing furniture may allow a comfortable, sustainable posture. The assessment should establish what you need, rather than start with a shopping list or an employer’s blanket refusal.

Eyes, breaks and hours at home

DSE users can request a free eye and eyesight test under regulation 5. If the test shows you need special glasses for screen work and ordinary glasses would not do the job, your employer must pay for the necessary special pair. It does not have to fund an upgrade to your everyday glasses.

The normal adult rights under the Working Time Regulations include an uninterrupted 20-minute break when the working day exceeds six hours, 11 hours’ daily rest and 24 hours’ weekly rest, or 48 hours over a fortnight. The weekly working-time limit is an average of 48 hours unless you have a valid opt-out. Special rules and exceptions apply to some work. Homeworking itself is not an exemption.

The UK has no general statutory right to disconnect. But out-of-hours messages can eat into rest and add to stress, and a weekly-hours opt-out does not waive other rest rights. Ask for agreed contact hours and record work outside them. See contact after work.

Stress, mental health and the unsuitable home

Work-related stress belongs in the risk assessment. HSE’s homeworking guidance covers stress and poor mental health. Its Management Standards are a way to assess demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. They are not a separate set of statutory rights.

A care coordinator can spend home days covering rota gaps and taking calls from distressed relatives. A customer-service worker can face abuse through a headset without a colleague nearby. Ask for a workload review and agreed escalation arrangements. A wellbeing email will not fix an impossible caseload. See work-related stress claims and employer mental-health duties.

Your home may lack suitable space, or a disability may make the arrangement difficult. Say so. Options include equipment, changed hours or another work location. Homeworking or equipment can also be a reasonable adjustment under section 20 of the Equality Act 2010. Failing to make a reasonable adjustment can be unlawful discrimination. See reasonable adjustments for disabled workers.

If you are pregnant, breastfeeding or have given birth in the last six months, notify your employer in writing. HSE says it must then carry out an individual risk assessment, including your homeworking arrangements. If risks cannot be controlled, it must adjust conditions or hours, then offer suitable alternative work if those changes are not possible. Eligible employees must be suspended on paid leave if neither option is possible. See pregnancy rights at work for the wider protections.

Money: bills, kit and the tax change

There is no general legal duty to pay your heating, broadband or rent simply because you work from home. Check your contract and expenses policy for promised allowances. Necessary safety equipment is a separate obligation, not an allowance your employer can choose to withhold.

Employee homeworking tax relief ended from 6 April 2026. You cannot claim it for the tax year ending 5 April 2027. GOV.UK says you can still claim for the four previous tax years if you met the eligibility conditions, including having to work at home rather than choosing to.

When the work is dangerous

A bad chair needs action. It does not automatically give you a protected right to refuse all work. The statutory test is danger you reasonably believe to be serious and imminent.

Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 protects workers, including employees, against detriment for leaving or refusing to return to a dangerous workplace where they could not reasonably be expected to avert the danger. It also protects appropriate steps to protect yourself or others from such danger. Section 100 protects employees against dismissal for the specified health and safety reasons. These protections can apply to homeworking, but the facts and your employment status matter.

Keep your report, the response and evidence of any warning or lost shifts. Tell your union rep and seek advice promptly.

Electrical safety and accidents

HSE’s electrical guidance covers employer-provided equipment and its safe use. Your employer need not maintain all your domestic wiring, but cannot ignore reported work-related hazards. Visually check leads, plugs and sockets; do not attempt electrical repairs.

Report work-related injuries to your employer. RIDDOR applies to homeworking, but not every home accident is reportable. The link to work activity or employer-provided equipment, and the reporting criteria, matter. See reporting an injury at work.

Getting or keeping a homeworking arrangement

Whether your employer can require an office return depends on your contract, the hybrid agreement and any relevant reasonable-adjustment duty. A discretionary policy is different from a contractual right. Do not assume a policy change overrides a term in your contract.

Employees in Great Britain have a day-one statutory right to request flexible working, in force since 6 April 2024. You can make two requests in 12 months. The employer normally has two months to decide, unless you agree an extension, and must consult before refusing. It can refuse only for one or more of the eight statutory business reasons. This is a right to request, not an automatic right to hybrid work. See how to request flexible working.

Agency, insecure and self-employed workers

Agency and hirer share safety duties on homeworking assignments. Ask the organisation directing your work for the assessment and equipment, and copy the agency. Being passed between them does not solve the hazard.

Workers who are not employees still have safety and working-time protections. But the DSE definition of “user” names employees, while section 44’s serious-danger protection expressly covers workers. Get advice if someone uses your contract label to refuse an assessment or eye test.

Genuinely self-employed people doing ordinary low-risk desk work at home generally fall outside the health and safety duties imposed on self-employed people. That does not mean all self-employed work is exempt, or that a business directing your work has no duties towards you. If a client controls your hours, equipment and work location, check whether you are really self-employed. See employee, worker and self-employed status.

Working alone is another risk to assess, not an exemption. Agree how to call for help and who to contact if something goes wrong. See working alone safely.

If your employer does nothing

1. Put the unresolved risk in writing. Identify the task, the hazard or symptoms, the assessment requested and the action still missing. Ask for a safe interim arrangement.
2. Bring in your union. A safety rep can help challenge the assessment and raise shared problems. Ask UNISON, Unite or GMB about representation for your sector. If several colleagues face the same refusal, raise it together.
3. Use the grievance and enforcement routes. Follow the employer’s grievance procedure. Report serious unresolved safety failures to HSE or the relevant local enforcing authority, or HSENI in Northern Ireland. A regulator complaint and a claim about retaliation are different routes.
4. Protect the claim deadline. Contact Acas if you are considering a GB tribunal claim. Citizens Advice, law centres and union legal services are other advice routes. Do not wait for the grievance to finish before checking time limits.

Acas says most GB tribunal claims about events on or after 1 October 2026 have a six-month-minus-one-day limit. Most claims about earlier events retain three months minus one day. Scottish breach-of-contract claims change on 9 November 2026. Early conciliation can pause time if you notify Acas within the applicable limit; a grievance does not. The claim type and date matter, so get your own deadline checked.

What changed and what is still to come

1. 6 Apr 2024In force: GB flexible-working request changes

   Employees have a day-one right to request, two requests in 12 months and a normal two-month decision period.

2. 6 Apr 2026In force: employee homeworking tax relief ended

   The separate exemption for qualifying employer homeworking payments remains.

3. 1 Oct 2026In force: longer GB tribunal limits

   Most claims about events from this date have six months minus one day. Earlier events normally keep the old limit. Scottish breach-of-contract claims change on 9 November.

4. 30 Oct 2026Scheduled: stronger harassment duties

   The timetable lists the “all reasonable steps” sexual-harassment prevention duty and third-party harassment obligation. They are not yet in force.

The government timetable also lists further flexible-working reform for 2027, without a fixed date. Future dates remain subject to parliamentary processes. None of this is a reason to delay the homeworking safety duties that already apply.

Questions people ask

Will your employer inspect your house?

A home visit is not legally required. A trained self-assessment reviewed by your employer can be enough, but it must identify the risks. Unanswered safety concerns still need action.

Do hybrid employees qualify for free eye tests?

Yes, if they are DSE users. Regular home days do not remove the right to request a test or to necessary special screen-work glasses when ordinary glasses are inadequate.

Who pays for a chair and monitor at home?

Your employer pays for equipment identified as necessary by the assessment. That is not an automatic right to new furniture if your current setup is suitable.

Can you be sacked for refusing an unsafe home setup?

Employees have protection for specified health and safety reasons. Leaving danger reasonably believed serious and imminent, which you cannot reasonably be expected to avert, is one. Workers also have serious-danger detriment protection. Discomfort alone does not automatically meet the test.

Must your employer pay heating and broadband?

There is no general duty just because you work from home. Check your contract and expenses policy. Necessary safety kit is separate. Employee homeworking tax relief ended from 6 April 2026.

Does paid admin at home count if your main job is on site?

Yes. The general assessment should cover those tasks. Occasional short screen use does not automatically qualify you for a DSE user’s eye-test rights.

Sources

1. Managing home workers’ health and safety, HSE.
2. Working with display screen equipment at home, HSE.
3. Managing your health and safety, HSE.
4. Working environment and accidents, HSE.
5. Stress and mental health, HSE.
6. Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, legislation.gov.uk.
7. Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, legislation.gov.uk.
8. Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992, legislation.gov.uk.
9. Working Time Regulations 1998, legislation.gov.uk.
10. Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, legislation.gov.uk.
11. Employment Rights Act 1996, section 44 and section 100, legislation.gov.uk.
12. Equality Act 2010, section 20, legislation.gov.uk.
13. Risk assessment for pregnant workers and new mothers, HSE.
14. Health, safety and wellbeing when working from home, Acas.
15. The statutory right to request flexible working, Acas.
16. Employment tribunal time limits, Acas, updated 1 October 2026.
17. Tax relief for employees: working at home, GOV.UK.
18. Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, section 316A, legislation.gov.uk.
19. Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act timeline update, GOV.UK, updated 25 September 2026.
20. Who has access to hybrid work in Great Britain?, ONS, 11 June 2025. Source for the earnings comparison.
21. Health and safety statistics 2024/25, HSE. Source for musculoskeletal disorders and work-related stress, depression or anxiety.
22. Employers’ health and safety responsibilities, nidirect.