Too Hot to Work? It’s a Heatwave Problem: Workplace Temperature Law Scotland

Britain is not built for heat. Our homes are typically designed to retain heat, not repel it.

So when a red extreme heat warning was issued this week for large parts of the UK, workers across Scotland were left asking a reasonable question:

At what point is it simply too hot to work? Under current law, nobody has decided.

Irvine Beach, North Ayrshire

Regulatory Protection

The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 require employers to maintain a "reasonable" indoor temperature. The guidance sets a minimum of 16°C (13°C for physical work) but no maximum, anywhere in the UK.

The Health and Safety Executive argues a hard upper limit is impractical. Many workplaces, such as bakeries, foundries, and commercial kitchens, run hot by nature. Banning work above 30°C would shut down entire industries. Instead, employers must risk-assess heat as they would any other hazard. What "reasonable" looks like is left to them.

The TUC has long called for a statutory ceiling of 30°C for desk-based work and 27°C for physical work. Successive governments have declined to act.

What Employers Must Do

No maximum temperature does not mean no obligation. Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, employers are required to:

• Assess and monitor heat as a workplace risk.

• Take practical steps to reduce exposure including the use of fans, blinds, flexible hours, relaxed dress codes.

• Prioritise vulnerable workers, including those who are pregnant, elderly, on medication, or have underlying health conditions.

• Provide cold drinking water and additional rest breaks in extreme heat.

Workers also have the right to leave a workplace they consider unsafe, though whether that threshold has been crossed remains, frustratingly, a matter of individual judgement.

Our Position

When it comes to Scotland's workplace heat laws, our mid-summer temperature record is 32.2°C, set in 2019. This week's red alert was centred further south, but amber warnings extended into parts of Scotland, and forecasters are clear that the trend is heading in one direction.

Critically, workplace health and safety is not devolved. Scotland operates under the same UK-wide framework, and the same legal gap, as the rest of Great Britain.

The Alert Levels Explained

The UK Heat-Health Alert service, run jointly by the Met Office and the UK Health Security Agency, uses four colour-coded levels.

Employers can use these as a prompt for action.

Alert Level	What It Means	What Employers Should Do
Green	Normal summer conditions with minimal health risk	No action required.
Yellow	Elevated temperatures with risk to vulnerable groups	Check on at-risk staff, review ventilation and hydration.
Amber	Significant heat with whole-population risk	Active measures required, consider flexible or remote working.
Red	Extreme heat with risk to life for healthy adults	Emergency response, consider sending non-essential staff home.

Summers will keep getting hotter. For Scotland's IT sector, where office-based work is the norm and server rooms compound the problem, the stakes are particularly high.