Noise levels in an office
A common question which comes up on noise assessments is what classes a dangerous noise in an office environment, with people asking what the safe levels are for noise in offices.
Key points on noise in an office
The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 are primarily interested in what is a dangerous noise. Noise in an office may be irritating but it is rarely dangerous.
There are no legal limits for what is an irritating noise. This would be impossible to set - what is one person’s irritation is an irrelevance to someone else.
The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 set no limits for noise levels in an office.
If someone is really bothered by a noise then it is more of an HR issue than a safety one.
Safe noise levels in an office
A safe noise level in an office is the same as a safe noise level for any workplace, which is an average of 85 dB(A) over an eight hour period however I have very rarely seen an office which meets this noise level.
What people are often referring to is issues such as the sound of nearby industrial machinery permeating the office or sounds of copiers or printers or design tables etc. within the office itself. It is extremely rare for these noises be present to such an extent that they are dangerous, but many people certainly find them highly irritating.
Irritating noise in an office vs dangerous noise
Irritating noise is not synonymous with dangerous noise.
The issue is that what one person finds to be a continually irritating noise in an office is very personal and another person may have no issue with it at all. It would be impossible to set this out in regulation.
As my own example, open-plan offices are to me the very definition of the seventh level of Hell, I loathe them with every fibre of my being as they are always filled with the constant babble of noise from other people working. I could not and would not ever work in such a tortuous and to me hellishly noisy environment, while many many other people seem to thrive in that atmosphere of collegiality and cooperative work. I do however work quite happily all day at my desk with music playing out of two big speakers, a noise which would drive some other people mad.
I did a noise assessment recently where a production office was right next to some very large and continuously-operating machinery. While I was doing the noise assessment in the factory they asked for a measurement in the office as one person was really bothered by the constant low-frequency noise from the machines, but the level in there was only ≈62 dB(A), a common level in shared offices. The person who was bothered by the noise was not wrong or making it up, for them it was clearly an issue, but that doesn’t make it dangerous.
The noise in the office is not dangerous, but for some people it can be highly irritating and distracting, which means it is a HR issue rather than a safety one.
Sometimes it is a case of ‘that’s what it is, live with it’, while at other times maybe something can be done but that is down to HR and the company rather than because it is a safety issue.
In some circumstances there could be a risk to the company which needs to be considered
By this I mean a risk to what the company does rather than a safety or health risk to the person working there.
An example of this would be a noise assessment I did for a group of people in a specialist veterinary referral centre who were studying MRI scan results in an office which had constant noise from people passing through and chatting. The staff there said it was impacting their concentration on diagnosing the results so from a HR perspective I would think something did indeed need to be done by the company due to the potential consequence of them getting distracted and getting it wrong.
But, again that is outside the scope of a noise assessment which is looking at the risks of excess noise on people’s hearing and the noise assessment showed the levels to be far below anything which could be dangerous. Here, the risk is to the employer’s actual business.
FAQ: Noise issues in an office
I am trying to concentrate but I can constantly hear distracting noise, surely the company has to do something about it?
As long as the noise is not going to damage your hearing, which would be extremely unlikely in an office environment, or the outcome of a distraction could harm the safety of others, then it is not a safety issue so beyond the scope of the noise regs. If an accountant has trouble concentrating due to noise then that is a HR and general management issue, not a safety one.
You say no office has noise levels above 85 dB(A) at a level which can damage hearing, but I know of one. You are wrong.
I add this as there are always pedants in every corner of the Internet. I specifically worded it using things like ‘extremely unlikely’ as I am well aware there could be an office out there which has dangerous noise levels, but it is very unusual. I have come across them myself in the past - I can think of one which had a production office right next to a massive drop forge and when that thing fell the noise was very loud. But that was very much the exception to what is normal in an office.
Other information on noise at work
Article last updated 26th April 2026
