Submit your data now for IMCA’s Annual Safety Report

Nick Hough, Safety and Security Consultant at the International Marine Contractors Association, explains why collective action is essential to help IMCA champion good safety practice and reduce injuries and fatalities across the marine contracting community
 
Improving safety for offshore workers sits at the core of IMCA’s mission. For over 50 years, alongside members, regulators, and clients, we have supported the emergence of a safer offshore construction industry.
 
To support this work our expert, member-led committees develop industry-leading technical guidance to share best practice and address emerging safety trends. We provide promotional materials and resources that enable members of all sizes to confidently strengthen their own safety culture.
 
And, nearly 11,000 offshore professionals receive IMCA’s Safety Flashes each month, ensuring that lessons learned can be shared with the entire sector. IMCA’s online archive contains over 2,000 such reports.
 
The success of our members’ collective efforts has been impressive. IMCA members’ ‘total recordable industry rate’ (TRIR) has more than halved since 2011, from almost 2.5 to 1.1 injuries per million hours worked in 2024, while offshore fatalities have fallen dramatically, from 2.38 to 0.18 fatalities per million hours worked since 2007 – the lowest ever recorded by IMCA contractor members.
 
This progress is extremely welcome, but it is clear that as an industry we have more to do. To drive these numbers down further requires focussed action based on accurate, industry-wide data.
 
That’s why, at this time each year, we ask our contractor members to share their safety data for inclusion in IMCA’s Annual Safety Report, which IMCA has published annually since 1996. This exercise is about more than numbers – it’s about understanding trends, benchmarking performance, and guiding IMCA’s priorities as we continue to advocate for technical excellence and safety in offshore operations.
 
Last year, nearly 200 companies contributed data totalling more than one billion working hours. While this enabled IMCA to produce its most authoritative Annual Safety Report yet, data from more companies are needed to build a more complete picture of fatal accident rates, lost time injury frequency rates (LTIFR); total recordable injury rates and, most importantly, their causes.
 
The data tell us that just over half (52%) of lost time injuries were ‘line of fire’ related. Understanding the underlying causes of these accidents was a priority for IMCA last year, working with clients, regulators, and other partner organisations. Slips and trips were the second main cause of LTIs, accounting for 22% of the total in 2024. 
 
Last year’s research also illustrated the challenge of driving further improvements in safety. The LTIR across members’ onshore and offshore operations remained unchanged at 0.3 incidents per million hours worked. Meanwhile, the TRIR rose slightly (from 1.07 to 1.1 injuries per million hours worked), a pattern seen across the energy industry, although IMCA contractor members saw a small improvement in the TRIR offshore, from 1.47 injuries per million hours worked in 2023, to 1.38 in 2024. 

Members are urged to submit their safety statistics on the IMCA portal during the first quarter of 2026, and to join us at IMCA’s Health, Safety & Security Seminar, which returns to Amsterdam on Tuesday 2 and Wednesday 3 June 2026, where the findings of this year’s survey – alongside topics including mental first aid, a safety and security update from the IMO, and the emerging threat to marine operations from spoofing and jamming – will be discussed.
 
Submitting safety data is essential to help IMCA champion good safety practice and drive improvement across the marine contracting community. Every submission is anonymised, ensuring confidentiality while enabling meaningful analysis. Together we can continue to make a measurable difference.