7 July 2025
Maintaining electrical safety in the workplace: what employers need to know
Electrical safety can go wrong fast. A damaged conductor, poor isolation or fault inside electrical equipment can expose someone to electric shock, burns, fire or an arc flash in seconds.
Keeping people safe starts well before anyone puts on protective clothing. You need to know where the electrical hazards are, decide how the work can be carried out safely, keep your electrical systems in good condition and make sure the people doing the work have the right knowledge and experience. Where an arc flash risk remains, suitable arc flash PPE can form part of those controls.
The exact risks will vary across different sites and working environments. Electrical work in sectors such as rail and construction can involve very different equipment, access conditions and exposure, so your controls need to reflect the work being done.
Get the basics right before work starts
Electrical safety is much easier to manage when the right controls are already in place. Before work starts:
- Find the electrical hazards and understand who could be exposed.
- Make equipment dead and securely isolate it wherever you reasonably can.
- Check that the people doing the work have the knowledge and experience they need.
- Keep equipment, installations and protective measures in a safe condition.
These aren’t separate jobs that only come together during an audit. Changes to equipment, people, contractors or working conditions can affect several of them at once, so your arrangements need to keep pace with what is happening on site.
Start with the electrical hazards
Before you decide on PPE, signage or working procedures, find out where electrical danger could arise. Look at the equipment and installations involved, the work people need to carry out, who might come into contact with them and the conditions around the work.
Don't stop at obvious faults such as exposed conductors or damaged insulation. A new production line, temporary power supply, contractor activity, change to machinery or altered site layout can introduce new risks or change an existing one.
Your risk assessment should then feed directly into how the work is planned. That could mean changing equipment or layouts, restricting access, improving isolation arrangements or putting a more formal safe system of work in place.
Make safe isolation your starting point
Before anyone works on electrical equipment, ask whether you can make it dead. Where you can, isolate the supply, secure it against being switched back on and check that the equipment really is dead before work begins.
That takes more than a label or an assumption that the right switch has been turned off. Your isolation procedure should make it clear what has been isolated, who controls the isolation and how accidental re-energisation will be prevented.
Higher-risk work might also need permit-to-work arrangements, particularly where several people, contractors or parts of an installation are involved. The Health and Safety Executive's electrical safety guidance provides further information on safe working with electrical equipment and systems.
Know what the Electricity at Work Regulations require
The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 apply wherever electrical danger could arise from work activities. They cover the safety of electrical systems, maintenance, isolation, live working and the competence of the people carrying out the work.
Regulation 14 is especially important if anyone needs to work on or near a live conductor. You can only allow that work where making the conductor dead would be unreasonable, working live is reasonable in the circumstances and suitable precautions are in place to prevent injury.
However, live work shouldn’t become the convenient option simply because shutting equipment down will interrupt operations. Think about future maintenance, testing and isolation when you plan new equipment or changes to an installation. Designing safer access into the system from the start can prevent difficult choices later.
The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 also apply alongside these electrical safety duties.
Catch electrical problems before they become failures
Electrical safety doesn't stop once equipment has been installed. A cable doesn't need to fail completely before it becomes a risk. Damaged insulation, loose connections, corrosion, overheating and recurring faults can all tell you that something needs attention.
Build those warning signs into your maintenance programme. How often you inspect or test equipment should reflect what it is, where and how people use it, its condition and what previous checks have found.
A tool that moves around a demanding working environment may need much more frequent attention than equipment that stays protected in a clean, dry area. Fixed installations, switchgear and other electrical systems will have their own inspection and maintenance needs.
Keep useful records too. If the same fault keeps appearing, or inspections start finding deterioration sooner than expected, use that information to change the maintenance schedule rather than simply repairing each problem and moving on.
Don't turn PAT testing into a box-ticking exercise
Portable appliance testing can form part of your maintenance programme, but UK law doesn't require every portable appliance to receive a PAT test every year.
The HSE says inspection and testing frequencies should depend on the type of equipment, how it is used and the environment around it. Previous results can also help you decide whether current intervals still make sense.
That gives you room to focus attention where the risk is higher rather than automatically testing everything to the same timetable. Visual checks and reports from the people using equipment can also identify damage between formal inspections.
See the HSE's portable appliance testing guidance for more detail.
Make sure people are competent for the work
Sending someone on a course doesn’t automatically make them competent to work on electrical systems. You need to know that they understand the equipment, recognise the hazards and have enough practical knowledge and experience to do the work safely.
The level of competence will depend on the task. Someone carrying out electrical maintenance or isolation needs different knowledge from someone who simply uses powered equipment during their normal working day.
Make sure supervisors understand the limits too. They need to recognise when a job calls for specialist electrical competence, check that agreed controls are being followed and step in if the work or conditions change.
Electrical safety rules and procedures still have a place, but people need to understand why they exist and what to do when the situation in front of them no longer matches the procedure on paper. Refresher training can help where equipment, roles or working methods have changed.
Choose arc flash PPE for the risk that remains
PPE comes later in the process. First look at whether you can remove or reduce the electrical risk through safer equipment, isolation, restricted access and safer working methods. If an arc flash hazard remains, your risk assessment needs to tell you what protection people may need.
That may include protective clothing, visors, gloves and other equipment selected as part of the PPE system. For clothing, BS EN 61482-2:2020 sets requirements for garments and materials used against the thermal hazards of an electric arc.
But a garment meeting the standard isn’t automatically right for every job. Check its tested performance against the arc flash risk you have identified and consider how each item will work as part of the complete PPE system.
Alsico supplies arc flash clothing, including arc flash coveralls, for electrical environments where arc flash forms part of the risk assessment.
Don’t assume flame-resistant means arc-rated
Flame-resistant clothing and arc-rated clothing deal with related risks, but they aren’t interchangeable. A garment that limits flame spread hasn’t necessarily been tested against the thermal energy released by an electric arc.
If arc flash is one of your identified hazards, check the garment's arc-testing information and certification rather than choosing it on flame resistance alone. Arc-rated garments may carry values such as ELIM, ATPV or EBT, or an Arc Protection Class from box testing, depending on the test method used.
Our guide to arc flash protection goes further into arc flash risks, testing, PPE and garment selection.
Watch for the warning signs across your site
Some electrical hazards are obvious. Others show up as recurring faults, damaged equipment or workarounds that people have gradually started treating as normal.
Common problems include:
- Damaged live parts or insulation: Cracked covers, exposed conductors and worn cables can put people in direct contact with electricity.
- Poor isolation: A circuit that hasn’t been properly identified, secured and proved dead can become live while someone is working on it.
- Overheating and poor connections: Heat, discolouration or repeated tripping can point to faults that need investigation.
- Wet or harsh conditions: Water, dust, chemicals and physical damage can increase the risk and shorten equipment life.
- Arc flash hazards: Faults in switchgear and other electrical equipment can release intense thermal energy and cause severe burns.
- Changes around existing systems: New machinery, temporary supplies or altered layouts can introduce risks that weren’t present when the original assessment was done.
Encourage people to report these signs early. A recurring problem is useful information about the condition of your systems, not simply another repair ticket to close.
Review electrical safety when the workplace changes
A risk assessment can be accurate when you write it and outdated a few months later. Electrical systems rarely exist in isolation from the rest of the operation.
New machinery might increase loads or change access around switchgear. Contractors could introduce temporary supplies. A production change can put more people near equipment that previously sat in a restricted area. Even a change to working hours can affect who is available to isolate equipment or respond to a fault.
Build electrical safety into change management rather than waiting for the next scheduled review. Before new equipment or processes go live, check whether they affect existing assessments, isolation procedures, maintenance schedules, competence requirements or PPE.
This becomes especially useful across multiple sites. A fault or near miss at one location may point to the same vulnerability elsewhere, so share what you learn rather than solving the problem in one building and stopping there.
Frequently asked questions about electrical safety in the workplace
Electrical hazards include contact with live parts, electric shock, burns, arcing, fire and ignition in flammable environments. The risks will depend on your electrical systems, the work being carried out and the conditions around the equipment. Start with the hazards present in your workplace rather than relying on a generic checklist.
The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical systems and work activities to be managed so they don’t create electrical danger. The Regulations cover areas including system construction and maintenance, isolation, work on or near live conductors and competence. Regulation 14 also sets strict conditions around when work on or near live conductors can take place.
No. UK law doesn’t require every portable electrical appliance to receive a PAT test every year. You should decide inspection and testing intervals according to the equipment, how and where it is used, its condition and what previous checks have found. In some workplaces, regular visual checks can identify many problems before formal testing is needed.
You may need arc flash PPE where your risk assessment identifies an electric arc hazard that remains after you’ve considered isolation and other ways of controlling the risk. Select clothing and other PPE against the assessed hazard and applicable standards rather than relying on a general flame-resistant specification.
Electrical safety depends on decisions made long before someone starts a job: how equipment is designed and maintained, whether it can be isolated, who carries out the work and what happens when conditions change.
Protective clothing has a specific role where risk remains. If arc flash forms part of your workplace risk assessment, alsico can help you look at garment and fabric options against the protection required, wearer needs, laundering arrangements and wider supply requirements.
Explore our electrical safety clothing, learn more about our bespoke protective clothing, or speak to our UK team about your requirements.
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