For many employers, work-related stress has traditionally sat within the domain of HR rather than legal compliance. It is acknowledged, discussed and often addressed through wellbeing initiatives, employee assistance programmes and internal guidance for managers. Increasingly, however, that distinction no longer holds. Regulators are treating work-related stress as a tangible health and safety risk, and one that demands structured, evidence-based management.
The scale of the issue is difficult to ignore. The Health and Safety Executive’s most recent statistics, published in November 2025, show that around 964,000 workers are suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety. That represents a marked increase on the previous year. Working days lost have risen to 22.1 million, an increase of nearly a third, with stress now accounting for more than half of all cases of work-related ill health. Those figures are difficult to reconcile with the idea that stress is an individual or
