Roofing's Fall-Protection Rate Problem — FY2025 OSHA Data

An under-told part of the story

Framing: the second story

At 83.5 citations per 100 inspections, framing contractors are almost as exposed as roofers, and far more exposed than everyone else in this dataset, yet framing rarely gets named alongside roofing in fall-protection coverage. Roofing and framing share the same basic hazard profile: unprotected edges, open floor and roof systems, and work that by definition happens at height. Every other trade measured here sits at less than half the roofing/framing rate: siding, plumbing/HVAC, masonry, and electrical.

Not just a bigger target

The obvious objection to any “most-cited trade” claim is that OSHA simply inspects that trade more, so of course the citation count piles up. Measuring the rate per 100 inspections, instead of the raw citation count, is how this report tests that objection directly, and the rate still holds. Roofing’s 86.5-per-100 figure is nearly double the next-closest trade in this dataset (siding, at 43.6) and roughly 3.5 to 4.5 times every trade below that. Fall protection (1926.501) has been OSHA’s #1 most-cited standard nationwide for 15 consecutive years, and roofing alone accounts for well over half, roughly 60%, of the 5,914 federal 1926.501 citations issued in FY2025.

“The roofing industry led violations of the fall protection standard, followed by framers and siding contractors.” Occupational Health & Safety, Sept. 16, 2025

Independent trade-press reporting on the same FY2025 release ranks trades in the same order this report finds independently, by both citation rate and raw count: roofing, then framing, then siding. Two separate sourcing paths landing on the same result.

A secondary, honest finding

What about warehouses, universities, and other general-industry sites?

Roofing contractors work under the construction fall-protection standard, 1926.501. A lot of real-world fall-protection exposure instead falls under the general-industry standard, 1910.28: permanent rooftop access, mezzanines, and loading docks. We looked for the same rate story there, and in the interest of being straight about what the data does and doesn’t show: it isn’t there yet.

Federal OSHA’s enforcement records show only 15 inspections that checked 1910.28 compliance at warehousing and storage facilities (NAICS 493110) in FY2025, resulting in 16 citations, and just 2 such inspections at colleges and universities (NAICS 611310), resulting in 2 citations. Both are far short of the 25-inspection floor this report uses before calculating a rate. That’s the same floor that lets the chart above flag electrical contractors’ 40-inspection sample as small rather than exclude it outright.

That’s not a null result. It points to general-industry fall protection being a real, comparatively under-enforced exposure, just not one with a defensible statistic behind it yet. We’re flagging it as a direction for a future data pull, not forcing it into this report’s headline.