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Integrity Lift Compliance

Knowledge Base

What Is PUWER?

PUWER is the set of UK laws that keeps people safe when they use machinery and tools at work. It covers everything from a hand tool to a factory machine or a vehicle, and it says equipment must be right for the job, kept in safe working order, checked regularly, and used only by people trained to use it. The formal name is the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

Written and reviewed by Mark Crowley, Director, Integrity Lift Compliance Ltd — 26+ years hands-on lifting equipment engineering — NHS, commercial and industrial estates

Published 29 July 2026 · Updated 2 October 2026

What is PUWER for?

PUWER 1998 applies to virtually all equipment used at work — from hand tools and ladders through to forklifts, MEWPs and lifting equipment. It places a general duty on employers to ensure equipment is suitable for its intended use, properly maintained, and only operated by people with adequate information, instruction and training.

What counts as work equipment?

PUWER's scope is broader than LOLER's. It covers any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation used at work, including equipment that never lifts a load — compressors, guillotines and power tools sit alongside the lifting plant LOLER specifically regulates.

What are the core duties?

Regulation 4 requires equipment to be suitable for the purpose and conditions of use. Regulation 5 requires it to be maintained in an efficient state. Regulations 8 and 9 require operators to receive adequate information, instruction and training before use.

Does PUWER cover hand tools and vehicles?

Yes. Work equipment means any machinery, appliance, apparatus, tool or installation used at work, and the breadth of that catches far more than people expect — a hammer and a hand drill as much as a press brake, and vehicles used at work as much as fixed plant. There is no lower limit of size or value. If somebody uses it to do their job, PUWER applies to it.

What does "right for the job" actually mean?

Regulation 4 — suitability. Equipment has to be suitable for the work, for the place it is used in, and for the conditions it is actually used under, not the conditions somebody imagined when it was bought. A machine bought for a dry workshop and later moved outdoors has not changed, but its suitability has. This is the duty most often breached quietly, by equipment drifting into a job it was never chosen for.

What warnings and markings are required?

Regulation 23 requires equipment to carry any markings needed for health and safety, and Regulation 24 requires warnings — signs, notices or audible and visual devices — where they are needed. In practice that means capacity plates, isolation and control labelling, and warning signs that are visible, legible and understood by whoever has to act on them. Markings painted over during a refurbishment, or a warning in a language the operator does not read, are the usual failures.

How do PUWER and LOLER work together?

Where equipment is used for lifting, LOLER 1998 sits on top of PUWER and adds specific statutory examination requirements. A forklift, for example, must meet PUWER's maintenance and training duties and undergo LOLER's periodic Thorough Examination.

See our full PUWER 1998 Compliance overview

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Related Knowledge

PUWER covers all work equipment and sets the general duties: suitable, maintained, inspected where it can deteriorate, guarded and used by trained people. LOLER adds specific duties for equipment that lifts, including a thorough examination at fixed intervals with a prescribed written report. Lifting equipment is covered by both; other work equipment comes under PUWER but not LOLER.

LOLER is the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. It applies across Great Britain to lifting equipment used at work, and requires that equipment to be strong and stable enough for the job, properly installed and marked, used in planned lifting operations, and thoroughly examined by a competent person at set intervals: every six months for equipment that lifts people and for lifting accessories, and every twelve months for everything else, unless a written examination scheme sets different ones.

PUWER Risk Assessment & Maintenance Duties

PUWER 1998 requires work equipment to be suitable for the risks it presents, kept properly maintained and used only by trained operators, and the Management Regulations require those risks to be assessed — obligations that continue even where LOLER's periodic examination has just been completed.