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Compliance for Offices

Compliance for Offices — What You Actually Need

Offices are the textbook "low risk" workplace, and mostly that is fair. But "low risk" is not "no obligations" — the familiar duties still apply, and a handful of things (DSE since the shift to hybrid working, legionella in little-used water systems, the EICR everyone forgets) quietly catch office occupiers out. Here is what actually applies.

Your risk profile

Lower risk — genuinely. An office lacks the ignition sources of a kitchen, the sleeping risk of a hotel, or the vulnerable occupants of a school. The duties are real but proportionate. The trap is complacency: assuming "low risk" means "nothing to do," when in fact a small, steady set of obligations applies and a few are routinely missed.

What applies to you

In the order it matters. Each links to a plain-English guide.

Fire Risk AssessmentEssential — start here

Still required, even for a simple office. For low-complexity premises a competent manager can often carry it out using HSE guidance — but it must be done, recorded (at 5+ employees), and kept current. Multi-tenant buildings add a duty to cooperate with the landlord and other occupiers.

Health & Safety Risk AssessmentEssential

The general duty that underpins everything: assess the risks to staff and others, decide proportionate controls, record the significant findings (at 5+ employees), and review. For an office this is a manageable document, not an ordeal.

Electrical (EICR)Required — commonly overlooked

The one offices most often forget. The fixed installation must be maintained; the recommended inspection interval for commercial offices is typically five years. Easy to overlook precisely because nothing seems wrong — until it is.

PAT TestingRequired

IT equipment, chargers, kettles, heaters, and the growing population of leads and adaptors. Office IT sits on a long cycle (visual checks more than full testing), but extension leads and hand-held items need closer attention — and home-working equipment is a real, often-ignored grey area.

Workplace Safety TrainingRequired

Fire awareness for all staff, a fire marshal (or one per floor), first aid sized to your headcount, and DSE awareness for screen users. Light, but not optional.

Emergency LightingRequired

Escape routes and stairwells need to stay lit if power fails. Usually straightforward in an office, but it still needs the monthly and annual tests like anywhere else.

Fire ExtinguishersRequired

Appropriate cover for the premises — typically water or foam for general areas and CO2 near electrical equipment and server rooms. Annual service and monthly visual checks.

Legionella Risk AssessmentRequired — often wrongly skipped

Often assumed not to apply to offices — wrongly. Any hot and cold water system carries a duty, and offices have a specific weak point: the kitchenette tap or shower that sits unused for weeks. For most offices this is a proportionate assessment plus simple flushing of little-used outlets.

The office is the sector where the main risk is not fire, or gas, or asbestos — it is complacency. "Low risk" is an accurate description, and it quietly persuades people that there is nothing to do. There is: a small, steady, entirely manageable set of obligations, plus three or four things that get missed precisely because the premises feels so benign.

Where to start

Start with the fire risk assessment and the general health and safety risk assessment — for a simple office these are genuinely achievable in-house with HSE guidance, provided whoever does them is competent. Then check the two usual blind spots: the EICR (the fixed electrical installation that nobody thinks about because nothing looks wrong) and legionella (wrongly assumed not to apply, when any water system brings a proportionate duty).

The honest position on cost

Offices are where over-selling is the bigger danger than under-provision. The genuine obligations are light and cheap to meet, which makes a heavy bundled "compliance package" poor value for most office occupiers. The right move is to recognise how little you actually need, meet it properly, and decline to pay for risk you do not carry. Understanding the real scope — which this page lays out — is what lets you push back on an over-specified quote.

Common questions

We are five people in a serviced office. The landlord handles the building — what is left for us?

Less than you would in your own building, but not nothing. The landlord typically holds the building-wide fire risk assessment, fixed electrical installation, and common-area duties — but you remain responsible for your own portable equipment (PAT), your staff training and fire awareness, your own risk assessment for how you work, and cooperating with the building's fire procedures. Get clear, in writing, on the split — gaps appear exactly where each side assumes the other is covering something.

Does legionella really apply to a normal office?

Yes, if you have any hot and cold water system — which almost every office does. The duty is proportionate: for a typical office it means a straightforward risk assessment and a simple routine, with particular attention to outlets that sit unused (the shower nobody uses, the tap in the spare kitchenette). It is frequently skipped on the assumption that offices are exempt. They are not.

What changed with home and hybrid working?

Display screen equipment (DSE) duties now extend to home workstations, and portable equipment used at home sits in an awkward grey area for PAT. Neither is dramatic, but both are routinely ignored because they fall outside the visible office. A sensible DSE self-assessment process for home workers and a clear position on home equipment closes the gap.

What should this cost?

Office compliance is the cheapest of any sector to get right, which is the strongest argument for not over-buying. Be wary of being sold a heavy package for what is genuinely a light set of duties. Understand what actually applies (this page is most of it), get proportionate quotes, and do not pay for risk you do not carry. Your business, your risk, your decision.

Not sure how this applies to your premises?

Tell The Guide about your business and it will help you work out what you actually need — in plain English or full technical detail, your choice.

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Last updated 2026-06-09. General information to help you understand your obligations and judge your own risk — not legal advice.