PAT testing for offices and workplaces
Employer duties in plain English
If your staff use electrical equipment you provide — computers, monitors, kitchen appliances, chargers, extension leads — you must maintain it so it does not put people at risk. That duty sits in the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 and the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
PAT testing is how most UK employers evidence that duty for portable equipment. It is not prescribed by name, but it is what auditors, insurers, and HSE investigations look for after an incident.
Typical office intervals
IT equipment and fixed desk setups: often 24 months in low-risk offices, with formal visual checks in between. Kitchen and communal appliances: usually 12 months. Extension leads and frequently moved equipment: 12 months or less. Your competent tester should classify items by risk rather than applying one interval to everything.
Minimising disruption
Testing floor-by-floor outside peak hours, or on a quiet Friday afternoon, keeps downtime minimal. Employees should not need to leave the building — a good tester works around desks. Out-of-hours visits suit serviced offices and call centres.
Records that satisfy audits
An itemised register, certificate, and retest schedule stored digitally beats a filing cabinet of PDFs. ISO-aligned health and safety audits, landlord fit-out handovers, and insurance renewals all ask for the same thing: proof appliances were tested, what failed, and when the next test is due.
Quick answers
Do employees' own laptops need PAT testing?
Generally no — unless your policy treats bring-your-own devices as company equipment. Visual checks for obviously damaged leads are still sensible.
How many appliances does a typical office have?
A 15-person office often has 20–40 testable items once monitors, leads, kitchen kit, and printers are counted. Our £89 fixed band covers up to 30 appliances.
Can you test multiple branch offices in one trip?
Yes — multi-site clients on one route share travel costs and each site gets its own certificate.
Relevant services & areas
Booking or compliance questions for your premises? These pages go deeper on what we test locally.
By sector
Need it done rather than read about?
Fixed prices from £89 across Devon & Cornwall, certificates in your dashboard within 24 hours.