The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) launched a new workplace noise and vibration campaign on 13 October 2026, urging employers to act before exposure results in permanent occupational ill health. The campaign is aimed at sectors where powered tools, plant and repetitive machinery are routine, including construction, manufacturing, agriculture, utilities, waste management, engineering, maintenance and events.
Its central message is preventative rather than reactive: employers should identify exposure, reduce it as far as reasonably practicable and protect workers where residual risk remains. HSE has presented this as a practical three-part approach: assess, control and protect.
The development does not introduce new noise or vibration regulations, revised exposure values or a new statutory compliance deadline. The existing legal framework remains the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 and the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005. However, the campaign is a clear prompt for dutyholders to test whether their current arrangements are genuinely effective in live working conditions, rather than simply recorded in a risk assessment.
Why the campaign matters for site-based work
Noise and vibration are often normalised on operational sites because the sources are familiar: breakers, saws, grinders, drills, compactors, cut-off equipment, piling operations, mobile plant and workshop machinery. Yet the health consequences may emerge gradually. HSE says that around 15,000 workers develop hearing problems caused or made worse by work each year, while an estimated one in five workers is exposed to harmful workplace noise.
Excessive noise exposure can lead to irreversible hearing loss and tinnitus. Repeated exposure to hand-transmitted vibration can cause hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS), with effects including numbness, pain, tingling, reduced grip and impaired dexterity. Carpal tunnel syndrome may also be associated with vibration exposure. These outcomes can restrict an individual’s ability to work safely and undertake everyday tasks, so relying on employees to report symptoms after the event is not an adequate control strategy.
For environmental consultancies and contractors, the relevance extends beyond major construction sites. Intrusive ground investigation, remediation, demolition, materials processing, contaminated-soil treatment, waste handling, drilling, concrete breaking and infrastructure maintenance can all involve variable exposure patterns. Short-duration tasks, changing subcontract labour and hired equipment can make those risks harder to manage consistently.
What organisations should review now
HSE’s campaign gives employers a useful basis for a focused review of task planning, procurement and supervision. The priority should be to establish where exposure occurs, who is affected and whether stated controls operate as intended.
1. Revisit task-based assessments
Assessments should cover operators and those working nearby, not only the person holding a tool. On construction and remediation sites, simultaneous activities, enclosed work areas, reflective surfaces and changing workfaces can materially alter noise exposure. Vibration assessments should reflect actual trigger time, equipment condition, the work being done and the likely daily combination of tasks.
Risk controls should also account for agency staff, temporary workers and subcontractors. These workers may move between tasks or sites, making exposure records and clear communication particularly important.
2. Put source control ahead of personal protection
The campaign reinforces the established hierarchy of control. Organisations should first consider whether noisy or vibration-intensive work can be removed, redesigned, substituted or separated from people. Practical measures may include specifying lower-noise or lower-vibration tools, selecting alternative work methods, maintaining dampers and cutting equipment, isolating plant, using barriers or enclosures, and planning work to reduce the time people spend in higher-exposure areas.
Procurement deserves particular attention. Plant and tool selection decisions made before mobilisation can be more effective than attempting to manage a high-exposure task with administrative restrictions once work has begun. Hire agreements and subcontract packages should therefore define expectations for equipment condition, noise and vibration information, inspection and maintenance.
3. Check whether health surveillance arrangements match risk
Hearing checks and vibration health surveillance are not a substitute for engineering control, but they can identify early signs of harm and reveal weaknesses in an exposure-control programme. Where surveillance is required by the risk assessment, organisations should confirm that referrals, follow-up actions and occupational-health advice are clear and workable.
Supervisors also need a simple route for escalating reports of ringing in the ears, reduced hearing, numbness, tingling, pain or loss of grip. A reported symptom should prompt review of the individual’s exposure and the relevant task controls; it should not be treated as an isolated personal issue.
Implications for RAMS and project assurance
For principal contractors, specialist contractors and project managers, this campaign is likely to make noise and vibration a more visible topic in inspections and workforce engagement. RAMS should identify the main exposure-generating activities, specify relevant controls and make clear who checks them. Generic references to PPE or tool-box talks will be weak where the work involves known high-noise or high-vibration equipment.
Project teams should be able to demonstrate that controls are implemented: equipment is maintained, trigger times are monitored where necessary, exclusion arrangements are understood, hearing protection is suitable and workers receive task-specific instruction. Particular care is needed not to treat hearing protection as the sole answer. It is an important protective measure, but HSE continues to place emphasis on reducing exposure at source.
The immediate next step is therefore a proportionate review, not a wholesale rewrite of every health and safety document. Employers should identify their highest-risk tasks, check the quality of current exposure information, close obvious gaps in plant selection and supervision, and ensure arrangements for worker reporting and health surveillance are functioning. HSE has not announced a campaign deadline, but its October launch makes this an appropriate issue for pre-winter project reviews, 2027 procurement planning and contractor assurance programmes.