The scaffold trade body’s 240+ contracting member firms recorded a reduction in RIDDORs of 90 in 2021, to 67 in 2022 – representing a 26% RIDDOR accident rate reduction in 2022 (with a 63% reduction in the 16-20 age bracket), despite a 10% rise of scaffolding workforce numbers, to 17,315 operatives.

The 2023 NASC Safety Report also revealed the lowest accident incident rate (AIR) and accident Frequency rate (AFR) – of 3.87 and 0.20 respectively – since data started being collected, back in 1975, resulting in even more NASC member company employees working without incident or harm at work.

NASC President David Brown of IBN Scaffold Access Ltd said: “We are fast approaching our 80th Anniversary year in 2025 and when we look back on our previous years, our figures for 2022 speak for themselves – proving that our members are proactive in their approach to improving health and safety for their employees and also for the wider construction industry who use our scaffolds on a daily basis.”

NASC Managing Director, Dave Mosley said: “Another safety report and another year of data that proves that our strictly audited, highly regulated, well trained and proactive membership operate in the safest possible manner – proving why main contractors should only specify NASC member companies, who are fully transparent with their accident data.”

NASC Health and Safety Manager, Steve Kearney added: “We can all be very proud of the work that the NASC and its contracting members are doing to make this inherently dangerous industry safer, day by day – ultimately meaning more people work on and safely go home off NASC membership scaffolding structures. It’s great news for the sector.”

Read the 2023 NASC Safety Report in full here.