Outdoor workers: health and safety duties
No thermometer reading automatically stops outdoor work. Your employer still has to control the danger, and you have rights if you are punished for protecting yourself.
Picking crops in a heatwave, collecting bins on ice or delivering food through a storm is work, not a test of endurance. Your employer cannot make the weather your problem and leave it there. They must assess the danger and take practical steps to protect you. The harder question is what to do when they don’t.
- No max
- No automatic outdoor temperature cut-off
- Free PPE
- Required protection must not come out of your wages
- Day one
- SSP starts on the first qualifying sick day
- 6m – 1d
- GB tribunal limit for relevant events from October 2026
What your employer owes you outdoors
In England, Scotland and Wales, section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 requires employers to protect employees’ health, safety and welfare so far as is reasonably practicable. Section 3 imposes a similarly qualified duty towards others affected by the work, including contractors and the public. Working on someone else’s land does not erase those duties.
The Management Regulations require a suitable and sufficient risk assessment, with significant findings recorded if there are five or more employees. Review is required if it may be invalid or there is a significant change. A heatwave, flooded access road or storm warning should prompt a check. A completed form is not protection from flying debris.
Employers sharing a workplace must cooperate and coordinate safety. Agency and hirer responsibilities cannot be passed back and forth while you keep working. Lone working needs contact, monitoring and emergency-help arrangements. See working alone or in remote locations.
Heat and sun
Heat and UV exposure are different hazards. Shade, water and rest help prevent overheating. Skin protection matters even when the air feels cool. Farm pickers, roofers and grounds crews need both addressed.
HSE recommends cooler working hours, more frequent breaks, shade for rest areas and tasks, and free access to cool drinking water. Your employer should teach you to recognise early heat-stress symptoms. Heavy work and protective clothing can add to the heat burden.
For a rider, “drink more water” is useless if the schedule leaves no time to stop. Ask where you can refill, use a toilet and take shade. Picking crews need rest space close enough to use.
HSE advises covering up, a hat protecting the ears and neck, shade especially at lunchtime, and at least SPF30 sunscreen on exposed skin. Check your skin regularly. See a doctor promptly about a spot or mole that changes, itches or bleeds.
Sun-protective clothing required as PPE must be supplied free. Ask for sunscreen in the UV-control plan too. We would not call “buy your own cream and keep working” an adequate plan.
Cold, rain, wind and ice
Numb hands affect your grip. Wet clothes make it harder to stay warm. Ice is dangerous when you are carrying a bin or stepping out of a delivery van.
HSE recommends appropriate PPE, warming facilities, hot drinks and more frequent breaks. Controls may include waterproofs, suitable footwear, drying facilities, gritted routes and delayed tasks. A security guard standing still overnight needs a different assessment from a refuse collector doing heavy work.
Wind brings risks from branches, sheeting, loads and work at height. Decisions to stop particular tasks should follow the assessment, equipment instructions and conditions. A Met Office warning is evidence, not an automatic legal closure rule. No warning is needed to act on an obvious danger.
Driving and riding need controls for visibility, ice, road conditions and fatigue. See driving for work. Moving the risk from the yard to the road does not solve it.
Water, shelter and safe routes
Assess uneven ground, lighting, machinery, falling objects and falls from height too. Separate pedestrians from moving plant where the risk requires it. Recheck access after flooding, frost or heavy rain.
On GB construction sites, CDM regulation 34 requires protection from adverse weather. Schedule 2 requires readily accessible wholesome drinking water, toilets, washing facilities, and suitable rest rooms or areas with seating, facilities to boil water and an appropriate temperature. Changing and drying facilities are required where the conditions apply, including special clothing requirements or clothing becoming wet during work.
The Workplace Regulations have exclusions and qualifications for vehicles, temporary sites and remote agricultural/forestry land. On that remote land, water, washing and toilet requirements apply so far as reasonably practicable; specific rest-facility provisions do not apply. General safety duties remain. Employers still need to plan access to water, toilets and appropriate shelter.
If a cold construction shift has nowhere suitable to wash or warm up, ask how the welfare requirements are being met. See construction site safety and farm worker protections.
Free PPE and your employment status
Where other measures cannot adequately control risks, the employer must supply suitable PPE free, maintain it and replace it when needed. Boots, waterproofs, gloves, helmets and eye protection depend on the risks, not a universal kit list.
Since 6 April 2022, GB PPE rules have covered employees and “limb (b) workers”, people undertaking personal work for someone who is not their business’s client or customer. This can include casual staff and riders. A “self-employed” label does not settle status. See your right to PPE and employment status.
| Status | Safety and PPE | Protection against retaliation |
|---|---|---|
| Employee | Employer’s employee safety duties and free required PPE | Section 44 detriment protection; section 100 automatic unfair dismissal protection where its conditions are met |
| Worker who is not an employee | Free required PPE under the extended regulations; businesses must also protect people affected by their work | Section 44 protection for serious and imminent danger; no ordinary unfair dismissal claim |
| Agency staff | Agency and hirer must coordinate their responsibilities; tell both about missing controls | Depends on your worker or employee status and who takes the action |
| Genuinely self-employed | Usually arrange your own PPE; site businesses still have duties towards people affected by their work, and CDM duties may also apply | Employee and worker tribunal protections do not apply merely because you work on the site |
PPE does not make an unsafe lift or flooded route safe. Agency staff should ask who supplies kit and who changes the task when conditions worsen. See agency worker rights.
Can you refuse dangerous work?
In Great Britain, section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 protects workers against detriment, such as retaliatory cuts to shifts, in specified safety situations. Since 31 May 2021 its serious-and-imminent-danger protections have covered workers who are not employees too.
For leaving or refusing to return, you must reasonably believe the danger is serious and imminent, and it must be danger you could not reasonably have been expected to avert. The refusal covers your workplace or its dangerous part while the danger persists. There is also protection for taking appropriate steps to protect yourself or others from danger you reasonably believe is serious and imminent. What is appropriate depends on the circumstances, including what you know and the facilities and advice available.
If an employee is dismissed for a qualifying safety reason, section 100 makes it automatically unfair, with no minimum service requirement. A non-employee worker cannot bring that claim, but ending their engagement may still be actionable detriment under section 44.
Flying debris beside a scaffold, floodwater cutting off a field or lightning during roof work could support a reasonable belief. Neither a weather warning nor an employer’s reassurance decides a case. Keep evidence of the actual danger and missing controls, if safe.
- Get out of immediate danger. Do not wait for a reply or take a photo if that puts you at risk. Seek urgent help if someone is injured or seriously unwell.
- Tell your supervisor what is unsafe. As soon as it is safe, send a message naming the place, hazard and missing control. For example, “Ice covers the loading route and there is no treated walkway. Please arrange a safe route or another task.”
- Ask for safe work and keep a record. Request water, shelter, a warming break, a changed route or suspension of the dangerous task, as appropriate. Stay available for safe work where you can. Save messages and weather warnings without exposing yourself to the hazard.
- Report retaliation promptly. Record lost shifts, deductions, threats or dismissal and their dates. Speak to your union, Acas or Citizens Advice. An internal grievance does not stop the tribunal clock.
Section 44’s protection for reporting harmful or potentially harmful circumstances is an employee protection, with conditions concerning access to a safety representative or committee. Do not assume every gig-worker complaint qualifies. Ask an adviser about this provision, whistleblowing law or other protection.
Do not miss the tribunal deadline
Acas confirms that GB tribunal time limits changed on 1 October 2026. For the safety detriment and dismissal claims discussed here, the usual starting limit is three months less a day for relevant events before that date, and six months less a day for events on or after it. Dismissal time usually runs from the effective termination date; detriment time usually runs from the act complained of. Multiple incidents and transitional cases need individual advice.
Example: a retaliatory shift cut
If the relevant shift-cutting act happened on 20 September 2026, the ordinary starting deadline would be 19 December 2026. If it happened on 2 October 2026, it would be 1 April 2027. These dates are before any adjustment for Acas early conciliation. Notify Acas within the applicable limit. Early conciliation can pause the clock; a grievance or an HSE complaint does not.
See unfair dismissal claims and bringing a tribunal claim. We recommend getting advice when retaliation starts, not when the last week of the deadline arrives.
Pay when work stops, and sick pay when you are ill
A weather closure does not automatically cancel wages. Check guaranteed pay, agreed lay-off or short-time terms and what work you were ready to do. Casual and gig workers may have less contractual protection. Ask for the pay decision in writing. See lay-offs and employee rights.
If a weather-related illness leaves you unable to work, sick pay is a separate question. Since 6 April 2026, the SSP waiting days and lower earnings threshold have been removed. Eligible staff receive SSP from the first qualifying sick day. In 2026/27 the weekly amount is £123.25 or 80% of normal weekly earnings, whichever is lower. Those earnings are generally averaged over eight weeks. SSP is paid for qualifying days, not automatically for every calendar day you are unwell.
GOV.UK’s SSP guidance explains eligibility, including agency staff. Being a worker for PPE purposes does not by itself establish SSP entitlement, and the genuinely self-employed do not qualify. Check your contract for better sick pay. Agricultural workers should also check the separate agricultural sick pay rules flagged by GOV.UK.
Example: a grounds worker’s sick pay
An eligible grounds maintenance employee works 40 hours at the April 2026 National Living Wage of £12.71. Normal weekly earnings are 40 × £12.71 = £508.40. Eighty per cent is £406.72, so SSP is the lower amount, £123.25, for a full qualifying week.
A colleague earning £127.10 weekly receives 80%, or £101.68. Both examples assume steady earnings, a new sickness absence under current rules and no extra contractual sick pay. See Statutory Sick Pay.
Reporting an unsafe site
Tell the supervisor, site controller and safety rep. If you are supplied by an agency, tell it too. You do not have to wait for an internal process to finish before reporting a serious risk to the regulator.
In Great Britain, HSE or the local authority enforces health and safety depending on the workplace. HSE commonly covers construction and agriculture; councils cover many retail and other premises. Use the relevant authority’s safety-concern route and supply the location, work, dates, hazard and missing controls. In Northern Ireland, use HSENI or the relevant council. Ask how your identity will be handled. Do not promise yourself anonymity simply because you have requested confidentiality.
Inspectors can require improvements or prohibit dangerous activities. A report does not guarantee inspection or prosecution, and is separate from your retaliation claim. Keep seeking employment advice while it is considered. See HSE enforcement.
If someone is injured
Your employer must have adequate and appropriate first-aid arrangements. Keep your accident account and ask for it to be recorded. An accident-book entry is not a RIDDOR report. The responsible person, usually the employer, makes that statutory report, not normally the injured employee.
HSE’s reporting deadlines distinguish the categories. Deaths and specified injuries must be notified without delay, with the report received within 10 days. Injuries causing more than seven days’ incapacity for normal work must be reported within 15 days of the incident. Reportable occupational diseases must be reported when the responsible person receives the diagnosis. Not every injury or illness is reportable, and Northern Ireland has separate reporting rules.
See reporting an injury at work and workplace first aid. Keep medical records and evidence of the conditions, without delaying treatment.
Questions people ask
Can your employer make you work outdoors above 30°C?
There is no general legal outdoor maximum of 30°C. Your employer must assess heat, workload, exposure and controls. Protection for leaving danger depends on the conditions above, not a thermometer reading.
Must waterproofs, hats and sunscreen be free?
Required protective clothing must be supplied free as PPE. HSE also advises sunscreen on exposed skin. Ask how it fits into the employer’s UV-control plan; it does not replace protective clothing or shade.
Does a red weather warning mean the site must close?
Not automatically. It calls for urgent reassessment. Tasks may be unsafe without a warning too. Ask which controls have changed and which tasks are stopping or moving.
Can you lose shifts for refusing danger?
Retaliatory cuts can be unlawful where section 44’s conditions are met, including for non-employee workers facing serious and imminent danger. Keep rotas, messages and dates. Get advice promptly.
What if you are an agency worker or delivery rider?
Check your status. Free required PPE extends beyond employees. Agency and hirer must coordinate safety. Automatic unfair dismissal protection is for employees; other workers may have detriment claims. SSP eligibility is separate.
Can you report the site without first raising a grievance?
Yes. Use HSE or the relevant council in Great Britain, and HSENI or the relevant council in Northern Ireland. Reporting does not stop your employment-claim deadline.
Sources
- Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, particularly sections 2, 3 and 9, legislation.gov.uk
- Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulations 3 and 11, legislation.gov.uk
- Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, including regulation 3 exclusions and qualifications, legislation.gov.uk
- Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, regulation 34 and Schedule 2, legislation.gov.uk
- Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, legislation.gov.uk
- Personal Protective Equipment at Work (Amendment) Regulations 2022, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 44, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment Rights Act 1996, section 100, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment tribunal time limits, updated 1 October 2026, Acas
- Temperature in the workplace: outdoor working, Health and Safety Executive
- What the law says on workplace temperature, Health and Safety Executive
- Outdoor workers and sun exposure, Health and Safety Executive
- Lone working, Health and Safety Executive
- Work-related fatal injuries in Great Britain, provisional 2025/26 figures, Health and Safety Executive
- Statutory Sick Pay: eligibility and payment, GOV.UK
- Employment Rights Act 2025 commencement regulations for SSP, effective 6 April 2026, legislation.gov.uk
- National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates, GOV.UK
- Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981, legislation.gov.uk
- Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, legislation.gov.uk
- RIDDOR reporting deadlines, Health and Safety Executive
- Health and safety enforcement, Health and Safety Executive
- Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland, HSENI