Safety Footwear for Trades — Standards, Ratings and Your Duties (2026)

The Foot Injuries Safety Footwear Prevents

Before the standards make sense, it helps to know what you're protecting against. On a typical site, the recurring risks are:

• Crushing: dropped or falling objects — a brick, a scaffold board, a slab — landing on the toes. This is what the toe cap is for.
• Penetration: standing on a nail or screw that goes straight through the sole. Penetration-resistant midsoles stop this.
• Slips, trips and falls: wet floors, mud, oil, screed and dust. Slip-resistant outsoles reduce these.
• Cuts and abrasions: from disc cutters, chainsaws, sharp metal and broken glass.
• Electrical and chemical hazards: contact with live parts, static discharge, splashes of solvents, acids or hot bitumen.

No single boot is best at all of these. The standards exist precisely so you can match the protection to the risks on your jobs.

Your Duty as an Employer (and as a Sole Trader)

If you employ anyone, the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 apply. Where your risk assessment shows a risk of foot injury that cannot be adequately controlled by other means — and on most sites it cannot be designed out entirely — you must provide suitable safety footwear free of charge. You cannot pass the cost on to the worker, deduct it from wages, or treat it as a uniform expense they have to fund.

Providing the boots is not the end of it. The duty is to ensure footwear is:

• Suitable for the actual risks and the conditions of the work;
• Compatible with any other PPE worn (for example knee pads, over-trousers or chainsaw protection);
• Maintained in good, clean, working order; and
• Replaced when worn out or damaged, with somewhere to store it properly.

The 2022 amendment (the Personal Protective Equipment at Work (Amendment) Regulations 2022) widened these duties. They now extend to so-called 'limb (b)' workers — casual, short-term and agency workers who are not full employees in the traditional sense. In practice, if you bring people onto your jobs and direct their work, you should assume the duty to provide free, suitable footwear applies to them too.

If you are genuinely self-employed, the position is different: you must provide your own safety footwear. There is no one above you to fund it, and it is a legitimate business expense. Either way, footwear is the last line of defence in the hierarchy of control — you eliminate or reduce the hazard first (tidy the site, manage materials, control nails and offcuts) and rely on PPE only for the residual risk that remains.

The Standards: 20345 vs 20346 vs 20347

Almost all the confusion around safety boots comes from people not knowing which standard a boot is tested to. There are three, and the difference matters.

• BS EN ISO 20345 — safety footwear. This is the one you want. It requires a toe cap that withstands a 200 J impact (roughly a 20 kg object dropped from around a metre) plus a 15 kN compression load. The 200 J toe cap is the defining feature of true 'safety' boots.
• EN ISO 20346 — protective footwear. A lower-rated toe cap that withstands a 100 J impact. Fine for lighter environments, but not enough for general site work where heavy materials are handled.
• EN ISO 20347 — occupational footwear. No toe cap at all. It can still offer slip resistance, antistatic properties and other features, but it gives no impact protection to the toes. Not safety footwear in the protective sense.

If a boot does not carry a 20345 mark with a 200 J toe cap, it is not a safety boot for building-site purposes, whatever the marketing says.

Reading the Marking Codes: SB, S1, S1P, S3, S7

Once you know the boot is to 20345, the letter-and-number code tells you what it actually does. The base requirement is SB — the basic 200 J toe cap and nothing more. The S-numbers bundle SB with sets of extra features, so you don't have to read every add-on code individually:

• SB: 200 J toe cap only (the minimum).
• S1: SB plus a closed heel area, antistatic, energy-absorbing heel and fuel-oil-resistant outsole.
• S1P: S1 with penetration resistance added.
• S2: S1 with water-resistant upper (resists water penetration and absorption for a set time).
• S3: S2 plus penetration resistance and a cleated (lugged) outsole. This is the typical all-round site boot and the one most tradespeople should default to.
• S7: a newer high-spec category in the latest version of the standard — essentially S3 with non-metallic penetration resistance and full water resistance.

The individual add-on letters are worth knowing because they appear on the boot and tell you exactly what it has:

• P — penetration resistance via a steel midsole (the traditional anti-nail plate).
• PL / PS — the newer non-metallic penetration resistance (a textile or composite plate). PL is tested with a larger nail, PS with a smaller, sharper one. Non-metallic plates cover more of the sole and add no cold bridge.
• A — antistatic (dissipates static build-up without giving full electrical insulation).
• E — energy-absorbing heel, which softens the impact of every step.
• WRU / WR — water-resistant upper (WRU) or whole-boot water resistance (WR).
• HRO — heat-resistant outsole, able to withstand brief contact with hot surfaces (useful for roofing, asphalt and hot works).
• CI / HI — cold or heat insulation of the sole complex.
• M — metatarsal protection over the bridge of the foot.

Slip resistance used to be flagged with separate SRA, SRB and SRC marks. In the latest version of 20345, basic slip resistance is built into the base requirement for the standard rather than being an optional add-on, with additional marks (such as an SR designation) used to flag enhanced performance. Whichever marking system you see on a given boot, check that slip resistance is present — it is one of the most common real-world injury causes on site.

Toe Caps and Midsoles: Steel vs Composite

Both the toe cap and the penetration plate come in steel or non-metallic (composite) versions, and the choice affects weight, comfort and where you can wear them.

• Steel toe caps and midsoles: thinner, often cheaper, and time-tested. The downsides are weight, conducting cold in winter, and setting off metal detectors — a nuisance if you work in airports, secure sites or anywhere with screening.
• Composite toe caps and midsoles: made from fibreglass, carbon, plastics or aramid fabrics. They are lighter, non-conductive (no cold bridge, electrically safer) and metal-detector friendly. A composite-midsole boot also protects more of the sole, because the plate can extend right to the edges rather than leaving a steel-plate gap.

For most tradespeople a composite S3 boot is the comfortable, modern default. Steel still has its place where you want maximum protection in the thinnest possible cap, or where cost is the deciding factor on a large team.

Metatarsal Guards and Boot Styles

For jobs where heavy objects can land on the bridge of the foot — drop-zones, heavy lifting, demolition — look for the M metatarsal-protection marking, which adds a guard over the top of the foot beyond the toe cap.

Style is a real decision, not just preference:

• Lace-up boots: the best fit and ankle support, ideal for general site work and uneven ground.
• Rigger boots: pull-on, quick on and off, popular on groundworks and plant. Be aware some sites ban riggers because the lack of lacing gives less ankle support.
• Wellington-style safety boots: fully waterproof, ideal for groundworks, concrete pours, agriculture and very wet conditions. Look for a 20345-rated safety wellington, not a standard one.

Fit, Comfort, Inspection and Replacement

The best-rated boot in the world is useless if it gets taken off because it hurts. Ill-fitting safety footwear is one of the most common reasons workers end up unprotected. Buy for fit and comfort as seriously as you buy for rating — try boots on with the socks you actually wear, allow for foot swelling later in the day, and replace anything that causes blisters or pain rather than soldiering on.

Inspect footwear regularly and take it out of service when:

• The outsole tread is worn smooth — slip resistance is gone.
• The toe cap is exposed or the upper has split away from it.
• The sole is cracked, delaminating or has been penetrated.
• Waterproofing has failed and the boots stay wet through.

Worn soles and exposed toe caps must be replaced, not patched. Remember the order of priority: footwear is the last line of defence after you have eliminated or controlled the hazard. Good housekeeping — clearing offcuts, denailing timber, managing dropped materials, keeping walkways dry — does more to protect feet than any boot, and the boots are there for the risk that is left over.

Quick Reference: Safety Footwear Codes

The Bottom Line

For the vast majority of UK trades, a composite S3 boot to BS EN ISO 20345 — 200 J toe cap, penetration-resistant midsole, water resistance and a slip-resistant cleated sole — is the right default. Step up to metatarsal protection, heat-resistant outsoles or full waterproof wellingtons where the task demands it. If you employ people (including casual and agency workers), provide that footwear free of charge, keep it suitable and maintained, and replace it when it wears. If you're self-employed, the same boot is on you — and it's some of the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy.