Occupational health and safety inspector
Also called HSE inspector, safety officer, factory inspector
Occupational health and safety inspectors perform workplace audits to ensure compliance with government and environment legislation. They also investigate work accidents. Occupational health and safety inspectors interview employees to ensure the work environment is compliant with health and safety rules, inspect the physical work site and analyse legal paperwork.
What you'd do
Environmental and occupational health inspectors and associates · ILO- Advising employers‚Äô and workers‚Äô representatives on the implementation of government and other rules and regulations concerning occupational safety and the working environment
- Inspecting places of work to ensure that the working environment, machinery and equipment conform to government and other rules, regulations and standards related to sanitation and/or occupational and environmental health and safety
- Giving advice on environmental sanitary problems and techniques
- Inspecting places of work and, by interviews, observations and other means, obtaining information about work practices and accidents to determine compliance with safety rules and regulations
- Inspecting areas of production, processing, transport, handling, storage and sale of products to ensure conformity with government and other rules, regulations and standards
- Advising enterprises and the general public on the implementation of government and other rules and regulations concerning hygiene, sanitation, purity and grading of primary products, food, drugs, cosmetics and similar goods
- Inspecting establishments to ensure that they conform to government and other rules and regulations concerning emission of pollutants and disposal of dangerous wastes
- Initiating action to maintain or improve hygiene and prevent pollution of water, air, food or soil
- Promoting preventive and corrective measures such as control of disease carrying organisms and of harmful substances in the air, hygienic food handling, proper disposal of waste and cleaning of public places
- Estimating quantities and costs of materials and labour required for health, safety and sanitation remediation projects
- Indoors and outdoors
- A mix of sitting and standing
- Lots of contact with people
- Good freedom to decide
- Usually 40 hours a week
- Deadlines most weeks
- Some repetitive tasks
Will there be jobs?
Yes, good prospectsMany jobs will need filling by 2035.
Solid: measured. Dashed: forecast.
What does it pay?
About averagePay depends a lot on the country: from about €1,500 a month (Bulgaria) to €8,200 (Luxembourg), before tax.
Pick a country at the top of the page to see typical pay there, for people under 30, and compared with all jobs.
Among technicians and associate professionals in the EU, women earn 16% less per hour than men. Technicians and associate professionals · Eurostat
What do I need to study?
Usually post-secondary or a short degreePost-secondary training or a short degree in occupational health and safety is the usual route.
819 institutions in the EU offer services bachelor's degrees. Pick a country at the top of the page to see where to study and the official course finders.
Will AI change it?
Very littleAI could help with only small parts of the tasks.
Average task score 0.24 on a scale from 0 (AI can't do it) to 1 (AI could do it fully).
See the score for each of the 10 tasks
Based on what AI could technically do when assessed in 2025. It is not a forecast for a future year, and not a forecast of job losses. Scores for environmental and occupational health inspectors and associates. Source: ILO (2025), adapted (credits).