Noise and Hand-Arm Vibration at Work: The Exposure Limits Employers Must Know

Noise and hand-arm vibration are two of the most common occupational health hazards in workplaces that use powered tools, plant, or heavy machinery — construction, manufacturing, grounds maintenance, and engineering among them. Both are governed by their own set of regulations with precise, numerical exposure thresholds, and both carry a similar structure: an action value that triggers control measures, and a limit value that must never be exceeded. Getting the numbers right matters, because these aren't broad principles open to interpretation — they're specific legal thresholds that either have or haven't been crossed on a given task.

Noise: the Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005

The 2005 Regulations set three key thresholds, each expressed in decibels, A-weighted — dB(A):

• Lower exposure action value: 80 dB(A). At this level, employers must assess the risk to workers' health and provide them with information and training about that risk.
• Upper exposure action value: 85 dB(A). At this level, employers must provide hearing protection and establish designated hearing protection zones. Health surveillance — regular hearing checks — becomes mandatory for workers regularly exposed at or above this level.
• Exposure limit value: 87 dB(A). This is an absolute ceiling, measured taking the effect of any hearing protection worn into account. Workers must never be exposed above this level under any circumstances.

These 2005 thresholds are 5 dB(A) lower than the previous 1989 standard, reflecting a tightening of worker protection over time — a useful thing to know if reviewing older risk assessments or noise policies that may still reference the earlier figures.

Hand-arm vibration: the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005

Hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) is caused by regular use of vibrating hand tools and machinery — impact drills, chainsaws, grinders, and similar equipment — and can cause permanent, irreversible damage to nerves, blood vessels, and joints in the hands and arms if exposure isn't controlled. The Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005 set two thresholds, both expressed as an eight-hour energy-equivalent vibration exposure, A(8), in metres per second squared:

• Exposure action value (EAV): 2.5 m/s² A(8). Once a worker's daily exposure reaches this level, employers must introduce practical technical and organisational measures to reduce exposure — using lower-vibration tools, limiting trigger time, job rotation, and similar controls.
• Exposure limit value (ELV): 5.0 m/s² A(8). This is the maximum permissible daily exposure and must not be exceeded under any circumstances.

The HSE's guidance is explicit that many of the most effective control measures are straightforward and low-cost — better tool selection, job scheduling to limit continuous exposure, and worker training on grip technique and warm-up routines — rather than requiring expensive engineering solutions in every case.

Why both hazards need a proper assessment, not an estimate

A common mistake with both noise and vibration is relying on rough estimates of exposure rather than measured or manufacturer-supplied data. Tool and equipment manufacturers are required to publish vibration emission data, and this — combined with an honest record of actual daily trigger time — gives a far more reliable basis for an exposure calculation than an informal judgement of "how loud" or "how vibration-y" a task feels. Where multiple tools or noise sources are used across a working day, exposures need to be combined across the full shift, not assessed tool-by-tool in isolation, since it's the cumulative daily exposure that the action and limit values are measured against.

What employers should actually do

For noise, the practical sequence is: measure or estimate exposure using competent assessment, and once at 80 dB(A) begin the information and training cycle; once at 85 dB(A), issue hearing protection, mark protection zones, and enrol affected workers in health surveillance. For vibration, the sequence is similar: identify tools and tasks with meaningful vibration emission, calculate daily A(8) exposure against the 2.5 m/s² action value, and where exposure is approaching or exceeding that threshold, introduce the practical controls the HSE recommends before exposure risks reaching the 5.0 m/s² limit. In both cases, health surveillance records need to be kept and reviewed — not filed and forgotten — since early signs of hearing loss or HAVS symptoms are the clearest trigger for revisiting whether current controls are actually working.

These exposure-based hazards often overlap with wider hazardous-substance and manual handling risk in the same workplaces, so reviewing them alongside existing COSHH controls and manual handling assessments tends to be more efficient than treating each hazard as a fully separate exercise.

Frequently asked questions

At what noise level must employers provide hearing protection?

At the upper exposure action value of 85 dB(A), employers must provide hearing protection, establish hearing protection zones, and offer health surveillance.

What is the exposure limit for hand-arm vibration?

The exposure limit value (ELV) is 5.0 m/s² A(8) — the maximum permissible daily exposure, which must never be exceeded. The lower exposure action value, which triggers control measures, is 2.5 m/s² A(8).

Can hearing protection alone bring noise exposure below the legal limit?

The 87 dB(A) exposure limit value is calculated taking the effect of hearing protection into account, so protection can help meet the limit, but it doesn't remove the underlying obligation to assess and reduce exposure at source.

Both noise and hand-arm vibration regulations rest on precise, measurable thresholds rather than general good practice — which makes them straightforward to assess correctly once the exposure data is actually collected, and easy to get wrong when it isn't. Learnsignal's CPD courses cover UK workplace health and safety compliance across the full range of physical hazard categories.