Safe Work Australia Key WHS Statistics 2025 report
Working at Height: Why We’re Still Falling (and Dropping) Short
Each year, Safe Work Australia produces national work health and safety statistics, providing important evidence on the state of work health and safety in Australia.
According to the latest Safe Work Australia Key WHS Statistics 2025 report, 24 workers lost their lives in 2024 after falling from a height.
That’s 13% of all workplace fatalities — and it’s not a new story.
We’ve been seeing versions of this for years.
Now add in the 17 workers who died after being hit by moving or falling objects, and you start to see the bigger picture: we’re still struggling with height safety; both the people working at height and the risks created by height.
| 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
| 28 falls from height (15%) | 18 falls from height (13%) | 21 falls from height (11%) | 22 falls from height (11%) | 19 falls from height (11%) | 17 falls from height (9%) | 29 falls from height (15%) | 24 falls from height (13%) |
| 15 being hit by falling objects (8%) | 15 being hit by falling objects (10%) | 21 being hit by falling objects (11%) | 17 being hit by falling objects (9%) | 16 being hit by falling objects (9%) | 17 being hit by falling objects (9%) | 12 being hit by falling objects (6%) | 17 being hit by falling objects (7%) |
The data is clear: Falls from height remain one of the deadliest mechanisms of workplace fatalities in Australia.
Even though the number of falls from height is smaller compared to other types of incidents (like body stressing or slips), the consequences are usually more severe. Gravity has no bias.
Falls don’t often end in minor injuries: they end careers, and sometimes, they end lives.
In 2023–24, around 32,000 serious injury claims were linked to falls, slips, and trips. About a quarter of those — roughly 7,800 claims — were falls from a height.
Think ladders, roofs, platforms, scaffolds — the everyday workspaces for trades and maintenance crews across construction, utilities, and manufacturing.
It’s not just the frontline workers either. Supervisors, contractors, and even visitors can be exposed when controls are rushed or assumed.
And one of the most dangerous Australian mindsets is closely tied to incidents: “It’s Only a Quick Job”.
Ask anyone in safety, and they’ll tell you how often falls from height start with the words:
“It’s only a quick job.”, or “She’ll be right mate”.
That mindset skips planning. It skips checking anchor points, exclusion zones, and rescue procedures. And it’s often those “quick jobs” that go horribly wrong: especially when time pressure outweighs proper setup.
The data shows older workers (55+) are more likely to make serious injury claims. It’s not because they’re careless, it’s because experience sometimes replaces caution, and physical recovery takes longer when things go wrong.
If a fall from height is the obvious risk, dropped objects are the silent one.
In 2024, 17 fatalities were caused by workers being hit by moving or falling objects.
That includes everything from a spanner dropped off a scaffold, to a load shifting mid-lift, to unsecured materials rolling off plant or platforms.
Dropped-object incidents don’t just injure — they cause lasting trauma for teams. These are the moments that make people rethink everything they know about “working safely above others.”
Tool tethering, secondary retention, good housekeeping, and exclusion zones under elevated work aren’t new ideas — but the stats show we still don’t apply them consistently.
So What’s the Fix?
The solution isn’t complicated — it’s consistency.
- Engineering controls first: guardrails, barriers, tool lanyards, proper access systems.
- Rescue planning built in: not bolted on later.
- Administrative control: permits, supervision, exclusion zones, job briefings that actually mean something.
- Empowerment: supervisors must feel confident to pause a job if the setup isn’t right: no questions asked.
Falls and dropped objects don’t discriminate between new workers and veterans. They punish complacency and rushed work.
Working at height is one of the most controlled activities in our industry: and still one of the most dangerous.
We don’t need new rules; we need stronger habits, smarter setups, and better conversations.
If you’re a safety leader, a rope tech, a project manager, or just someone who spends time above ground level…. ask yourself:
“Are my controls built for compliance, or for consequence?”
Because the goal isn’t just to get our people up there safely.
It’s to make sure they always come back down.
