Last Updated: October 10, 2026
Electrical risk assessment is the systematic process of identifying electrical hazards in your workplace, evaluating the likelihood and severity of harm, and implementing control measures to protect your workforce.
Why does this matter? Electrical hazards cause serious injury and death. They’re often invisible until something goes wrong. A competent electrical risk assessment catches problems before they become incidents.
The difference between a workplace that handles electrical safety well and one that doesn’t comes down to one thing: systematic hazard recognition followed by proportionate control. Many organisations skip the systematic part.
The first step is straightforward: walk your workplace and identify every electrical hazard.
Common electrical hazards include:
Hazard recognition requires you to think about work activities, not just equipment. What are your teams actually doing? Where are they doing it?
A construction site near underground services needs a different assessment than a healthcare facility. A hospital maintenance team faces different risks than an industrial plant operator.
Document every hazard you identify. Write it down. Don’t rely on memory. A simple list is enough at this stage, you’ll evaluate risk next.
Now you assess each hazard. Risk assessment means answering two questions for every hazard you’ve identified:
Multiply likelihood by severity to get risk level. This gives you a simple scoring system to prioritise where to focus your control efforts.
| Hazard | Likelihood | Severity | Risk Level | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contact with overhead power line during scaffolding erection | High | Fatal | High | Immediate |
| Damaged extension lead in wet environment | Medium | Major | Medium | Soon |
| Unmarked underground cable during groundworks | High | Fatal | High | Immediate |
| Untrained person working on live switchboard | Medium | Major | Medium | Soon |
| Portable appliance with frayed lead | Low | Minor | Low | Monitor |
Likelihood factors:
Severity factors:
An electrical shock can stop a heart. An arc flash can cause severe burns. Underground cable strikes can be fatal. Don’t underestimate severity.
Use a checklist to ensure you evaluate every hazard consistently. Your assessment should cover work activities, environmental conditions, equipment condition, and competence of personnel.
Once you’ve identified and scored risks, you control them. The hierarchy of controls tells you what to do first:
For overhead power lines, you can’t eliminate the hazard. You control it through safe systems of work: planning routes, using spotters, maintaining safe distances, and ensuring competent supervision.
For underground cables, controls include cable plans, hand-digging protocols, and marking hazard zones before work starts.
For live equipment work, controls include safe isolation procedures, lockout/tagout systems, and ensuring only authorised persons carry out the work.
The key is matching the control to the risk level. A high-risk hazard needs multiple controls. A low-risk hazard needs monitoring and basic precautions.
Risk assessment looks different depending on your setting. Here’s how it works in three common scenarios.
A construction site is excavating a new building foundation. Underground cables run beneath the site. The hazard is cable strike during digging.
Hazard identification: Underground cables (live, buried, unmarked on older drawings)
Risk evaluation:
Controls applied:
Residual risk: Low (if controls are followed)
This is how it should work: a high-risk hazard gets multiple, layered controls. No single control is relied upon alone.
A hospital maintenance team services backup generators and UPS systems. These are live, high-voltage installations critical to patient safety.
Hazard identification: Live electrical equipment; risk of shock and arc flash during maintenance
Risk evaluation:
Controls applied:
Residual risk: Low (with competent personnel and strict procedures)
Healthcare facilities can’t always shut down electrical systems. Critical systems must remain live. That’s why multiple controls, competence, isolation procedures, PPE, and inspection, are essential.
An industrial plant has overhead power lines running across the site. Cranes, mobile elevated work platforms, and tall equipment operate underneath or nearby.
Hazard identification: Contact between equipment and live overhead lines
Risk evaluation:
Controls applied:
Residual risk: Low (with strict adherence to safe systems)
The common thread in all three examples: high-risk hazards get multiple controls, competent supervision, and clear procedures. Low-risk hazards get basic precautions and monitoring.
Every organisation has legal duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. These duties fall on employers, managers, and anyone in control of work.
Employers must:
Managers and supervisors must:
Individual workers must:
Competence is critical. A competent person has the knowledge, training, and experience to safely carry out electrical work or supervise others. They understand the hazards, can recognise problems, and know how to respond.
Many organisations discover during assessment that their teams lack the competence they assumed they had.
Document your assessment. Write down:
A simple spreadsheet or form works. It doesn’t need to be elaborate. What matters is that it’s clear, complete, and accessible to the people who need it.
Review your assessment:
An assessment that sits in a file and never changes is useless. Your workplace evolves. New hazards emerge. Controls fail. Your assessment must evolve too.
1. Skipping the walk-through. Don’t assess from an office. Walk the site.
2. Underestimating severity. Electrical injuries are often fatal or permanently disabling.
**3.
4. Implementing controls nobody follows. A control that isn’t used is useless.
5. Assuming training equals competence. Someone can pass a course and still not be competent.
6. Never reviewing the assessment. Work changes. Hazards evolve. Your assessment must too.
**7.
8. Forgetting about contractors. Contractors working on your site face the same hazards as your staff.
Electrical risk assessment isn’t complicated. It’s systematic hazard thinking followed by proportionate control. Walk your workplace.
If your team needs specialist support, whether that’s training on safe isolation procedures, competence assessment, or help designing your assessment process, SJB Electrical Training delivers hands-on programmes tailored to your workplace. Our expert-led courses cover HSG47 guidance, safe systems of work, and practical risk management so your team can confidently identify hazards, assess risk, and implement controls that actually work. Book Training to get started.
Start by identifying all electrical hazards in your workplace: overhead lines, underground cables, portable appliances, and live equipment. Evaluate the likelihood and severity of harm for each hazard using a scoring system. Apply control measures following the hierarchy of controls: elimination, substitution, engineering controls, safe systems of work, and personal protective equipment. Document findings, assign responsibility, and set review dates. HSG47 provides the framework for this process. Competent persons should lead the assessment, though all team members contribute hazard identification.
A thorough electrical risk assessment checklist must cover: identification of all electrical equipment and installations, recognition of hazards (shock, arc flash, fire, thermal burns), evaluation of who might be harmed and how, assessment of existing control measures, determination of residual risk, and selection of additional controls needed. Include details of work activities, work environment conditions, maintenance and inspection schedules, and competence levels of personnel. Document any overhead or underground services, portable appliances, and systems requiring safe isolation procedures. Record findings with dates and responsibility assignments.
Employers and duty holders have legal responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to ensure electrical risk assessment is completed. A competent person, with sufficient knowledge, training, and experience in electrical safety, must lead the assessment. For complex installations or high-risk environments, an Authorised Person with specialist qualifications may be required. Site supervisors, maintenance managers, and team leaders contribute by identifying workplace-specific hazards. All workers share responsibility for reporting new hazards or changes that affect the assessment.
Electrical risk assessments should be reviewed at least annually or whenever significant changes occur: new equipment installation, workplace layout changes, staffing changes, or incidents. After any near-miss or accident involving electrical equipment, reassess immediately. If work activities or environmental conditions change (moving to a site with overhead lines, for example), update the assessment before work begins. Competent persons should also review findings when control measures are not working effectively or when inspection and testing results reveal new issues. Keep dated records showing when assessments were completed and reviewed.
