Protecting UK workers’ health and incomes in a warming world

The UK’s 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2002, and heatwaves are likely to become more frequent and more severe until at least 2050, regardless of action taken globally to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Heatwaves affect workers’ health, labour productivity and labour supply, with largely negative implications for individual incomes, company profits and the economy more broadly.

With a limited history of dealing with extreme high temperatures and no statutory maximum working temperature, the UK requires new measures to protect workers’ health which would also likely positively impact firm profitability and economic growth. The authors of this report surveyed 2,000 workers after the period of elevated temperatures in summer 2024 to gain insights into how they were affected. This survey was followed by an expert roundtable with stakeholders from employment unions, local government, national government agencies, academia, the private sector, the charitable sector and chartered professional bodies in the UK. The aim was for the roundtable to co-create evidence-based, practical next steps for better protecting workers against the effects of high temperatures, informed by the survey results and the roundtable participants’ insights.

Insights from the survey of workers into heat–health impacts in summer 2024

• The changing climate and insufficient adaptation have resulted in the UK labour force increasingly working in warmer conditions.
• A unique dataset collected just after a sustained period of high temperatures in July 2024 clearly shows that workers across the UK felt the negative effects on their health.
• Workers with more secure employment contracts were more able to adapt to the heat.
• Many employers were sensitive to the changing needs of their workers and implemented adaptation measures such as flexible working hours.
• However, adaptation and worker protections were insufficient, particularly for ‘gig economy’ workers.
• Where early warnings were issued prior to the high temperatures in 2024, they appear to have been effective in inducing adaptive behaviours.

Practical next steps

The survey results indicate there is clear scope for interventions such as government regulation of maximum working temperatures; and enhanced and better-targeted early warning systems, building on existing UK Health Security Agency alert protocols. Participants at the expert roundtable highlighted the following practical next steps that stakeholders, including labour unions, academics and government agencies, can take to protect workers from the negative health and income effects of rising temperatures:

• Improve and quantify the evidence base for how heat stress affects occupational health and injuries, including the mental health and gendered impacts.
• Quantify the full range of economic costs to the labour force caused by high temperatures to demonstrate the urgency of the challenge for employers and government. Broaden the scope of the investigation to address heat combined with humidity and pollution and the effect of heat on sleep patterns.
• Increase the rollout and effectiveness of early warning systems to improve short-term adaptation measures and coping strategies, as part of a suite of longer-term planning and preparation that includes increased community resilience, protection of particularly vulnerable workers, and improved messaging.
• Increase engagement with communities, workers, businesses and policymakers, to improve the likelihood of cost-effective and health-protecting adaptations being implemented.
• Align an approach to extreme heat with the health, economic and climate change agendas of various government ministries and departments; and work closely with the UK Health and Safety Executive and the UK Health Security Agency.