Over the past year there has been a concerted public effort to shine a light on the issue of mental health. Is this greater awareness seeping down into industry? We analysed 14 years of data from the Labour Force Survey (a national quarterly survey of 37,000 households) to determine the level of self-reported mental health problems and the sectors in which they are most prevalent.

Our research found that self-reporting of mental health issues has reached a record high in the UK. In 2016/17 there were an estimated 431,000 cases where employees said they believed their job had caused problems for their mental health or made it worse.

Of all the industries surveyed, construction was found to have the lowest level of self-reported work-related mental health cases per 100,000 employees – just 690 in the last year. It is well known that mental health issues are widespread in the construction industry – often brought on by working in dangerous or challenging environments where small mistakes can lead to costly outcomes or, worse, accidents – so we suspect these numbers do not tell the whole story.

A mental health condition is likely to be classed as a disability under the equality act

…