On this page 6 sections
Short answer: under the safety sign regulations that apply in Great Britain, you need a sign wherever a risk is still there after you have done all you reasonably can to remove or control it. The main rules are the Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996. Fire exit and firefighting equipment signs come from fire safety law as well, which in England and Wales means the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Your risk assessments decide which signs go where. What follows is general information, not legal advice.
The questions we get asked most #
We print a lot of safety signs, and the same handful of questions come up again and again. Here they are, answered in the order people usually ask them.
1. Is a sign enough on its own?
No, and this is the one people most often get backwards. The 1996 Regulations treat a sign as the fallback for a risk that cannot be avoided or properly controlled some other way. If a machine should have a guard, fit the guard. A “hot surface” warning is for the hazard that remains once the sensible controls are in, not a substitute for them.
2. Can I design my own sign?
You can choose the size and material, but not the visual language. The Regulations set the colours, shapes and pictograms so a yellow triangle means the same thing in a warehouse as it does in a cafe or a school. Wording can be added where it helps, but symbol signs are the norm for a good reason: someone who does not read English well still understands a picture. Our safety sign colours and shapes guide explains what each colour, shape and ISO 7010 symbol means, so we will not repeat it here.
3. Do I have to tell staff what the signs mean?
Yes. Employers must give workers information, instruction and training on the signs in use and what to do when they see one. In practice that means covering signs at induction and when a new one goes up, and keeping a note that you did.
What the 1996 safety sign regulations cover #
The Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996 apply to workplaces in Great Britain; Northern Ireland has its own equivalent. They go wider than signboards on a wall. They also deal with:
- signs that light up;
- sounds used as signals, alarms being the obvious one;
- signals given by hand, and instructions given by voice;
- labelling pipes that carry dangerous stuff;
- stripes painted on things people could walk or drive into, and along traffic routes.
For most small firms, signboards are the part that matters day to day. Guidance usually sorts them into five families: prohibition (don’t do this), warning (watch out), mandatory (you must do this), safe condition (exits, first aid, assembly points) and fire equipment (where to find extinguishers, call points and hoses).
Where fire safety law comes in #
4. Who is responsible for fire exit signs?
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the “responsible person” for a building must carry out a fire risk assessment. That is usually the employer, the owner, or whoever controls the premises. The Order requires emergency routes and exits to be marked with signs, and manual firefighting equipment such as extinguishers to be marked too.
Walk a typical office and you will find the result: green running man signs guiding you to the way out and above the last door, red signs over each extinguisher and next to each fire alarm call point, a fire assembly point sign in the car park, and usually a fire action notice by the exits. North of the border and in Northern Ireland, different fire safety legislation applies, with broadly similar duties, so confirm which set covers your premises. The GOV.UK workplace fire safety page is a sensible plain-English starting point, and a competent fire safety adviser can take it from there.
5. What about shared buildings?
Duties can be shared. As a rule of thumb:
| Where | Normally down to |
|---|---|
| Hazard, PPE and prohibition signs inside a workplace | The employer |
| Fire exit and fire equipment signs | The responsible person: employer, owner, landlord of shared parts or managing agent |
| Building sites | The principal contractor, working with the client |
| Multi-tenant buildings | Each employer inside their own unit; landlord or agent for corridors, stairs and shared exits |
Put in writing who looks after which areas. Two clashing sets of arrows on one corridor are worse than one clear set.
Signs other rules ask for #
6. Are there signs outside the safety sign regulations?
A few, and details differ between the four nations:
- Smoking: enclosed workplaces and public places covered by smoke-free law must display no-smoking signs. The no smoking including e-cigarettes sign we make uses symbol P002 from ISO 7010.
- Cameras: if you record people on CCTV, data protection guidance expects you to let them know, and a sign is the usual way.
- Hazardous substances: chemical stores commonly carry warning signs on the door; GHS hazard pictograms explains how those differ from container labels.
- Disabled visitors and staff: the Equality Act 2010 asks for reasonable adjustments, and legible, high-contrast signs fixed at a sensible height are part of that.
A walk-round you can do this week #
7. How do I work out what I need?
- Open the risk assessment. For each risk still left, ask whether a sign helps. If there is no remaining risk, you do not need a sign for it.
- Sort it into a family. Forbidden, caution, must-do, escape route or fire kit.
- Use the standard symbol. Where ISO 7010 has one, use it; our product pages show the code.
- Size it for the distance. Go up a size where the light is poor. Sign text size helps with the maths.
- Put it before the hazard. At eye level where you can, and never on a door that is normally propped open.
- Brief the team. Explain it, and write down that you did.
- Walk it again. Swap faded or broken signs, and take down any for hazards that have gone.
8. Does an old sign still count?
Only if it can be seen and understood. A sun-bleached sign, or one warning about a hazard that left years ago, teaches people to ignore signs altogether. Take out-of-date ones down.
Getting the signs made #
Most designs in our safety signs range come in A4 (210 × 297 mm), A3, A2 and A1 (594 × 841 mm), on 3 mm Foamex, 3 mm Dibond aluminium composite or self-adhesive vinyl. Running man exit signs come in 297 × 100 mm, 420 × 150 mm and 594 × 200 mm, such as the fire exit running man arrow down sign. Safety signs dispatch in 4 working days on Standard or 2 on Express, and UK mainland delivery is £7.95, free on orders of £100 or more after discounts.
The safety sign regulations put the decision on you, but you do not have to guess at the product. If you need a sign we do not list, contact us. For questions about your legal duties under the safety sign regulations, speak to a competent health and safety or fire safety adviser.