Who Is Responsible for Health and Safety? The 7 Roles That Share the Duty

It is one of the most common questions in any workplace, and one of the most misunderstood. When something goes wrong, the search for who was responsible often turns into a search for someone to blame. But health and safety does not work that way. The honest answer to who is responsible is everyone, with duties that differ by role, and with ultimate responsibility sitting squarely with the employer.

Getting this clear matters, because confusion over responsibility is itself a hazard. When people assume someone else is handling it, gaps open up, and gaps are where incidents happen. In the UK, the framework comes from the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which assigns specific duties to different parties, and the HSE explains these responsibilities in plain terms. Similar structures apply internationally. Here are the seven roles that share the duty, and what each one actually owns.

1. The employer (the primary duty holder)

The buck stops here. The employer carries the principal legal duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of employees, and to protect others affected by the business, such as visitors and the public. This duty cannot be delegated away or contracted out. You can bring in help to meet it, but you cannot hand off the responsibility itself.

In practice this means assessing risks, putting controls in place, providing information and training, and maintaining a safe working environment. When a business engages health and safety consultants, it is buying expertise to meet this duty well, while the legal accountability stays firmly with the employer. Everything else on this list supports and flows from this central obligation.

2. Directors and the board

While the employer as an organisation holds the duty, real accountability runs through the people who lead it. Directors and senior leaders set the tone, allocate the resources and make the decisions that determine whether safety is taken seriously or treated as an afterthought. Where leadership treats it as a priority, the rest of the organisation follows.

This is not just good practice, it is increasingly an expectation of governance, reflected in standards such as ISO 45001, which places explicit duties on top management. Boards that visibly own safety, rather than delegating and forgetting it, are the ones least likely to face a serious failure.

3. Managers and supervisors

Between the boardroom and the front line sit the managers and supervisors who turn policy into daily reality. They are responsible for making sure that the controls actually happen on their watch: that risk assessments are followed, that staff are briefed, that hazards are reported and addressed, and that the standard set at the top is the standard applied on the ground.

This is often where safety succeeds or fails in practice, because a brilliant policy means nothing if the supervisor on shift ignores it. Clear, well-supported managers are the mechanism that connects intention to action.

4. Every employee

Responsibility is not a one-way street. Under the law, every employee has personal duties too: to take reasonable care of their own safety and that of others, to cooperate with their employer on safety matters, and not to misuse anything provided for their protection. Safety is genuinely a shared effort.

This is why a strong reporting culture matters so much. Employees see hazards first, and a workplace where people feel able to speak up turns the whole workforce into an early warning system. Their responsibility is real, even though it sits within the framework the employer provides.

5. The competent person or health and safety advisor

The law requires employers to have access to competent health and safety advice, which means appointing one or more people with the right knowledge and experience to help meet the duties. This may be someone in-house, an external adviser, or a combination of both.

The key word is competent. This person does not take on the employer's legal responsibility, but they are responsible for providing sound advice and practical support. For many businesses, particularly smaller ones or those expanding internationally, this competent support comes through health and safety services that supply the expertise they do not have in-house.

6. Contractors, the self-employed and others sharing a workplace

Modern workplaces are rarely occupied by a single employer. Contractors, agency staff, the self-employed and visiting workers all create shared responsibilities. The law expects different parties who share a workplace to cooperate and coordinate, so that one organisation's activities do not endanger another's people.

The self-employed also carry duties for their own safety and for anyone affected by their work. Where responsibilities overlap, clarity is everything: knowing who controls what, and agreeing it in advance, prevents the dangerous assumption that the other party has it covered.

7. Those who control premises or supply equipment

Responsibility extends beyond employers and workers. Those in control of premises, such as landlords and building operators, have duties relating to the safety of the places they control, including shared areas and access. Likewise, manufacturers, suppliers and designers have duties to ensure that the equipment and substances they provide are safe to use.

For businesses operating across multiple sites or countries, these overlapping duties multiply quickly. This is where international health and safety consultants help map who is responsible for what across a global operation, so that nothing falls through the cracks between parties.

Is responsibility clear in your business? A checklist

Run these questions across your organisation. Each no answer is a place where responsibility may be unclear, and unclear responsibility is risk.

• Does everyone know that ultimate responsibility sits with the employer? Yes / No
• Do directors and senior leaders visibly own health and safety? Yes / No
• Do managers and supervisors know exactly what they are responsible for? Yes / No
• Do employees understand their own duties and feel able to raise concerns? Yes / No
• Have you appointed competent health and safety advice, in-house or external? Yes / No
• Where you share sites with contractors, are responsibilities agreed in advance? Yes / No
• Do regular health and safety audits confirm these roles work in practice? Yes / No
• For multi-site or international operations, is responsibility mapped consistently everywhere? Yes / No

If you hesitated on any of these, the gap is worth closing before an incident or an inspection finds it for you.

Where Arinite fits

Arinite has spent 15+ years helping businesses make responsibility clear and make it work. We support 1,500+ businesses across 50+ countries and have helped protect 100,000+ employees, with a 95% client retention rate. We provide the competent advice the law requires, delivered by qualified consultants and backed by software that keeps responsibilities, actions and records visible across every site.

As global health and safety consultants, we help organisations define who owns what and hold one consistent standard wherever they operate, so that responsibility is shared clearly rather than assumed loosely. The duty ultimately rests with you, but you do not have to carry it alone, and you certainly do not have to carry it without expert support. You can also read the underlying law on the HSE's page on the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The fastest way to see whether responsibility is clear in your business is a free gap analysis. Our specialists review your current arrangements and tell you plainly what is working and what is not. Book your free gap analysis and find out exactly where your business stands.