The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005, Explained

The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005 are the law that governs vibration exposure in Great Britain. They came into force in July 2005, they apply to hand-arm vibration and whole-body vibration alike, and they have not been meaningfully amended since, which makes them one of the more stable pieces of health and safety law an employer has to work with. Stability, though, is not the same as simplicity: the Regulations are written in exposure values and duty holders, and most of the people who have to live with them day to day are running crews, not reading statutory instruments.

This guide translates the Regulations into working English: who they apply to, the four numbers at their core, the four duties they place on employers, and what the consequences of ignoring them look like in practice. It deliberately does not re-derive the exposure points arithmetic, because HAV exposure points: the system explained covers that in full; here the points appear only where they map onto the legal thresholds.

Two Kinds of Vibration, One Set of Regulations

The Regulations cover two distinct exposure routes, and the duties are the same for both. What differs is the threshold values and the equipment involved.

If your people hold powered tools, HAV applies. If they drive or ride machines, WBV applies. On most grounds maintenance, construction and engineering teams, both apply, often to the same operator on the same day.

The Four Numbers at the Core

The Regulations set two thresholds for each exposure route: an Exposure Action Value, at which an employer must act, and an Exposure Limit Value, which must not be exceeded. All four are daily values, normalised to an eight hour reference period and written as A(8). The budget is per day, not per hour worked: a twelve hour shift gets no more allowance than a four hour one.

A narrow exception exists for HAV only: where exposure is usually below the action value but varies markedly day to day, the limit value may be averaged over a week rather than applied daily. It is a provision for exceptional circumstances with strict conditions attached, not an operating mode, and the points guide covers how weekly averaging works and why it is rarely the right answer.

Duty One: Assess the Risk

Regulation 5 requires a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risk created by vibration. In practical terms an assessment has to answer four questions: who is exposed, through which equipment, for how long each day, and at what magnitude. The first three are organisational facts. The fourth is where assessments most often go wrong.

The HSE advise that manufacturer-declared vibration figures are measured under controlled test conditions and frequently understate real-world use, and that a tool's magnitude rises as it wears. An assessment built on brochure values for equipment that is five years old is built on the wrong numbers, and every exposure calculation downstream of it inherits the error. On-site vibration testing of the actual machines in use, repeated as they age, is what keeps an assessment honest.

An assessment is not a one-off document. It must be reviewed when it may no longer be valid: new equipment, changed working patterns, reported symptoms, or measured figures that no longer match the assumptions.

Duty Two: Control the Exposure

Regulation 6 is the heart of the Regulations, and it operates in layers. The baseline duty, which applies at any exposure level, is to eliminate vibration exposure at source where reasonably practicable, or reduce it to as low a level as is reasonably practicable. Vibration is to be designed and managed out, not merely counted.

Above the action value, the duty sharpens: the employer must put in place a formal programme of organisational and technical measures. In practice that programme draws on a familiar menu: selecting lower-vibration equipment and keeping a purchasing policy that considers declared values, maintaining equipment so magnitudes stay close to their tested figures, planning work so exposure is shared across a team rather than concentrated in one pair of hands, building in breaks from trigger time, and keeping operators informed of where they stand against their daily budget as the day happens rather than after it.

One control that does not belong on the list is anti-vibration gloves. The HSE's consistent advice is that their effectiveness against the frequencies produced by most workplace equipment is limited, and relying on them risks giving operators a false sense of protection. Reducing exposure time and keeping equipment in good condition are the controls that work.

The limit value is a hard stop. If an operator's daily exposure reaches the ELV, the Regulations require immediate action to bring exposure back below the limit, identify why it was reached, and change whatever allowed it.

Duty Three: Health Surveillance

Regulation 7 requires health surveillance for employees who are regularly exposed above the action value, or who are otherwise at risk from vibration. The purpose is early detection: HAVS is progressive and irreversible, so the entire value of surveillance lies in catching the first symptoms, tingling, numbness, blanching of the fingers, while a change in work can still prevent them becoming permanent.

Surveillance is typically delivered through a tiered scheme run by an occupational health provider: periodic screening questionnaires, escalating to assessment by a qualified person where symptoms are reported. The employer's part of the bargain is to keep health records, act on the results, and, crucially, maintain exposure records good enough that a clinician can see what an individual has actually been exposed to. A diagnosis of HAVS or work-related carpal tunnel syndrome is also reportable to the HSE under RIDDOR, which is often the moment an organisation's record keeping is examined from the outside for the first time.

Duty Four: Inform and Train

Regulation 8 requires employers to provide exposed employees with information, instruction and training: the risks and the legal limits, the results of the risk assessment, the symptoms to watch for and how to report them, and the safe working practices that keep exposure down. An operator who does not know what 100 points means, or that tingling fingers are a reportable early warning rather than a fact of the job, has not been trained in any sense the Regulations recognise.

What Happens When It Goes Wrong

Vibration cases follow a depressingly consistent script. Symptoms are reported, or surface at a health surveillance appointment. The condition is diagnosed and reported under RIDDOR. The HSE, or a claimant's solicitor, asks for the risk assessment, the exposure records and the evidence of controls. And the case is then decided less by what the employer did than by what the employer can prove: organisations that managed exposure but recorded nothing find themselves defending years-old working patterns from memory.

HAVS claims are among the most common occupational disease claims in the UK precisely because the condition is permanent, the causation is clear, and the record keeping is so often poor. The Regulations have been in force for two decades; "we didn't know" stopped being an available defence a long time ago.

HSE Resources

The HSE publishes the official guidance on the Regulations:

• Hand-arm vibration at work: the HSE's hub for HAV guidance
• Whole-body vibration at work: the HSE's hub for WBV guidance
• L140, Hand-arm vibration: The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005, is the full guidance for HAV; L141 is its whole-body counterpart

The equipment-side duties that sit alongside these Regulations, maintenance, inspection and operator competence, come from a different statutory instrument entirely: PUWER and pre-use checks covers what it requires.

Important Notice

This guide is intended as general guidance only and does not constitute legal, safety, or compliance advice. It summarises legislation and HSE guidance in plain English and does not replace the legislation itself, statutory obligations, or professional advice on your organisation's specific circumstances. Organisations are responsible for their own risk assessments, procedures and compliance with the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005 and related HSE guidance. Earlsmere Limited accepts no liability for any loss or damage arising from reliance on this guide.