Emergency Lighting: What UK Businesses Are Legally Required to Have

If your premises has an escape route, a fire exit, or areas the public or staff pass through that aren't lit by daylight, emergency lighting almost certainly applies to you. Here's the basics every business owner or facilities manager should know.

Who needs it

Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the "responsible person" for non-domestic premises in England and Wales must ensure emergency lighting is provided wherever needed for people to safely evacuate if the normal lighting fails. In practice this covers offices, shops, warehouses, education buildings, and communal areas of blocks of flats, essentially anywhere with an escape route that isn't naturally well-lit.

What the standard actually requires (BS 5266-1)

BS 5266-1 is the British Standard covering emergency lighting design, installation and maintenance. It sets out minimum illumination levels along escape routes, at fire exits, and at points like stairwells, changes of direction, and firefighting equipment, and specifies a minimum duration the lighting must last on battery backup, usually 1 or 3 hours, depending on whether the building is evacuated fully or in phases.

Testing requirements, this is the bit people miss

• Monthly: a brief function test, simulating a mains failure to confirm each luminaire switches on.

• Annually: a full duration test, discharging the battery for its full rated time (1 or 3 hours) to confirm it still performs to spec, since batteries degrade and this is the only way to catch that before a real power cut does.

• All tests should be logged in a fire safety logbook, which insurers and fire authorities can ask to see.

Common gaps we see

Units where the battery has quietly failed and nobody's noticed because the monthly test only checks the light comes on, not for how long. Escape routes altered during a refit without emergency lighting being re-assessed, which comes up a lot alongside our guides towarehouse lighting and commercial drop-ceiling lighting. And self-contained units simply never having had their annual full-duration test logged.

We stock a wide range of emergency and exit lighting for new installs and replacements, with same-day availability on our core lines and trade pricing for contractors and facilities teams. Browse our lighting rangeor call either branch if you're not sure whether your current setup meets requirements; we can at least make sure parts aren't the thing holding a fix up.