Insights
There’s no single right number. It depends on your size, your risk profile, and how your work is spread across sites, so here’s how we help clients think it through.
The short answer
There’s no single right number. Australian WHS and OHS laws don’t set a ratio of safety officers to workers, and the few industries that do name specific safety roles focus on competence and systems rather than headcount. What the law does expect is that your organisation has the capability, time, and processes to manage its risks, so the right number depends on your risk profile, your sites, your workforce, and how mature your systems are.
In this article
Is there a legal ratio of safety officers to workers?
Where the law does name safety roles
How other countries approach it
Why a simple ratio can mislead
Six factors that shape the number
Signs your safety officers are stretched too thin
Ways to add capability
Common questions
Talk it through with us
Is there a legal ratio of safety officers to workers?
There isn’t one. You won’t find a required number of safety officers in the model WHS Act or Regulations, or in Victoria’s OHS laws. What the law requires is that risks are managed so far as is reasonably practicable, and that the people leading the business make sure that happens.
Under the WHS laws that apply in most states and territories, officers have a duty of due diligence, which includes making sure the business has, and uses, appropriate resources and processes to manage its risks. Comcare’s guidance on due diligence lists adequate WHS resourcing as one of its core elements, and our guide to building your HSE team looks at what that means for leaders. In other words, the test is whether your resourcing is adequate for your risks, not whether you’ve hit a ratio.
Queensland once required workplace health and safety officers under its old laws, but that requirement ended when the national WHS laws began in 2012. The Queensland Government’s policy for its own agencies still recommends retaining a trained safety advisor at workplaces where 30 or more workers are normally employed, which makes it one of the few Australian examples of a headcount trigger.
Where the law does name safety roles
A handful of regimes do require specific roles or appointments, although none of them set a ratio for the wider workforce.
Queensland coal mines
What’s required: A site senior executive and statutory roles such as open cut examiners and ventilation officers, which must be directly employed by the mine operator
NSW mines
What’s required: Nominated people in statutory functions, such as mining engineering manager and ventilation officer
Source: NSW Resources Regulator
WA mines
What’s required: Statutory positions such as site senior executive, underground manager, and quarry manager
Source: WorkSafe WA
Offshore petroleum, rail, and major hazard facilities
What’s required: An accepted safety case or a safety management system, rather than a set number of safety staff
Source: NOPSEMA, ONRSR, Safe Work Australia
Return to work coordinators
The most common legislated role isn’t a safety role at all, but it often sits with the safety team. Employers above certain thresholds must appoint a return to work coordinator, which is worth factoring into any sizing decision.
Victoria: employers with rateable remuneration of about $3.06 million or more, a figure that’s indexed each year
New South Wales: Category 1 employers, generally those with a workers compensation premium of more than $50,000 a year
Queensland: employers whose wages exceed a threshold set as a multiple of ordinary time earnings, which is lower in high-risk industries
How other countries approach it
Some countries do set numbers, which may be where some of the ratios you see online come from. India’s Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, which came into force in November 2025, requires safety officers in establishments with 500 or more workers, and at lower thresholds for hazardous processes, construction, and mines. The United States, like Australia, has no general ratio requirement. Those overseas rules are useful context, but they don’t apply here and they don’t reflect Australian risk-based law.
Why a simple ratio can mislead
Fixed headcount ratios can be a useful prompt for discussion, but they rarely tell you much on their own. A review of EHS workforce sizing published by the American Industrial Hygiene Association describes right-sizing as more of an art than a science, and recalls a Marsh study that found little correlation between safety performance and the number of safety professionals.
It also makes a point worth remembering. Organisations that loaded up on safety staff disempowered their line leaders from their own safety responsibilities. More safety staff doesn’t automatically mean better safety, because when the HSE team does everything, line managers can stop owning it. The aim is the right capability in the right places, so leaders and supervisors can do their part.
Six factors that shape the number
Risk
Usually needs less support: Office-based or low-risk work
Usually needs more support: Plant, heights, hazardous substances, confined spaces, or exposure to trauma or aggression
Sites and spread
Usually needs less support: One site in one city
Usually needs more support: Several sites across states, remote locations, 24-hour operations
Workforce
Usually needs less support: Stable, experienced, mostly direct employees
Usually needs more support: Large contractor or labour hire workforces, high turnover, and new or young workers
Regulatory complexity
Usually needs less support: General WHS duties only
Usually needs more support: Mining, major hazard facilities, health care, or transport
System maturity
Usually needs less support: An embedded safety management system
Usually needs more support: Building or rebuilding a safety management system, or a period of change
What else sits with safety
Usually needs less support: Safety only
Usually needs more support: Environment, quality, injury management, return to work, or wellbeing as well
Two of these deserve a closer look. Psychosocial hazards now need managing in every workplace, which adds work most safety teams didn’t have a few years ago. And if your safety people are also managing workers compensation claims and return to work, that can take up far more of their time than the job title suggests.
Putting the factors to work
A practical way to size your team is to start from the work rather than the headcount.
List your critical risks and where they sit across your sites and shifts
Estimate the safety work each one needs, such as inspections, investigations, consultation, and contractor management
Add the work that sits with safety beyond prevention, such as claims, return to work, and psychosocial risk assessments
Compare that with the hours your current people actually have
Decide how to close the gap, whether through a permanent hire, a contractor, or external support
Signs your safety officers are stretched too thin
Rather than starting with a number, it helps to look at what’s happening in practice. These are some of the signs that a standalone safety role, or a small team, isn’t keeping up:
Audits, risk reviews, and corrective actions keep getting pushed back
Your safety officers spend most of their time on incidents and paperwork rather than prevention
Sites or shifts rarely see anyone from safety
Psychosocial hazards haven’t been assessed, or the assessment hasn’t been revisited
Workers compensation claims are rising, or return to work is managed off the side of someone’s desk
Board reports only cover injury rates, because there’s no time to track anything else
Your safety person is leaving, or has told you the workload isn’t sustainable
If several of these sound familiar, it may be time to look at outgrowing a standalone safety role.
Ways to add capability
Adding capability doesn’t always mean adding a permanent role. Depending on what you need, there are several options.
A permanent hire at the right level
When it fits: Ongoing work that needs someone embedded in the business
What to expect: Coordinators around $105,000, advisers $120,000 to $140,000, and managers $160,000 to $180,000 in advertised salaries
A part-time or shared role
When it fits: Smaller or lower-risk businesses that need regular, rather than full-time, support
What to expect: A practical first step, provided the hours match the work
A specialist
When it fits: Injury management, psychosocial risk, or environment work a generalist can’t cover
What to expect: Often harder to find than a generalist, so allow more time
A contract safety professional
When it fits: A project, a system build, a period of change, or cover while you recruit
What to expect: Fast to start, and can bring experience that’s hard to attract into a permanent role
External support for specific work
When it fits: Audits or risk assessments alongside a smaller internal team
What to expect: Useful for defined pieces of work rather than day-to-day support
If it’s your first safety hire, an advisor suits most growing businesses, while a coordinator supporting an existing safety advisor can add capacity to a team that’s already in place. Most organisations end up with a combination. A contract safety professional during a system build, followed by a permanent safety advisor once the work is embedded, is a pattern we see often. Our guide to building your HSE team shows how the pieces fit together, and our guide to HSE team structures sets out common shapes by size and risk.
Common questions
How many safety officers are required for 50 employees?
There’s no set number in Australian WHS or OHS law. A business of 50 people doing lower-risk work may be well supported by a part-time or shared safety role, while higher-risk work, several sites, or shift work usually calls for at least one dedicated safety professional.
When do you need a workplace health and safety officer?
Usually when safety work has outgrown what managers can cover alongside their own jobs. Common triggers include higher-risk work, growth across sites or shifts, rising incidents or claims, and new obligations such as managing psychosocial risk. For many businesses, that’s the point to make a first safety hire.
How much does a safety officer earn in Australia?
It depends on the level of the role, the industry, and the location. Advertised salaries on SEEK in October 2026 put health and safety coordinators at around $105,000, advisers at $120,000 to $140,000, and managers at $160,000 to $180,000, with officer roles usually sitting around coordinator level.
Talk it through with us
Every organisation’s answer is different, and it’s often easier to work out over a conversation. Tell us about your sites, your risks, and how your HSE team structure looks today, and we’ll share what we’ve seen work for organisations like yours. Submit a vacancy, see the candidates we’re working with, or read about our injury management recruitment if return to work is part of the picture.
Thinking about a hire? We’d be happy to talk it through.
