Over half of young Britons already have hearing damage. And there’s no law to stop it.
A 2025 survey for the hearing charity RNID found that 58% of UK 18 to 28 year-olds have already experienced hearing loss, tinnitus or both after listening to loud music. The survey highlights the extent to which young people are suffering hearing damage due to exposure to loud music at gigs, music festivals and nightclubs. Yet Britain has no legal limit on the sound levels that an audience can be exposed to. There is still time to change that.
The danger is wherever there is amplified music or speech.
The law protects people from high noise levels when at work. There is no law to protect people from amplified music or speech at live music events, clubs, pubs, etc.
A worker exposed to 85 dBA in a factory must, by law, wear hearing protectors and his employer must reduce the noise. Anyone going to a club or live music event can be exposed to 100 dBA or more for hours a day, and there is no law to protect their hearing.
This isn’t a future risk. It’s happening to young people now.
The most recent UK data shows young people are not just at risk from loud sound: a majority say they have already experienced hearing damage.
From a survey of 2,000 young adults for RNID, the national hearing-loss charity. For most, the adverse effects start out temporary, but with repeated exposure they become permanent.
Awareness is not the problem. Despite knowing the risk, over a third of those surveyed (35%) did not plan to wear any hearing protection at live music events.
A WHO-led review found over a quarter of 12 to 34 year-olds expose themselves to unsafe sound through headphones and earbuds, and around 48% to unsafe levels at venues. Together that puts up to 1.35 billion young people at risk worldwide.
Same room. Two different rules.
Since 2008, staff working in music and entertainment venues have been protected by the Control of Noise at Work Regulations, exactly like factory workers. The paying audience standing near them is not.
As workers, they are covered by the Control of Noise at Work Regulations. Their employer must assess the noise and act at 85 dBA by providing hearing protection and reducing noise levels. Breaching this is breaking the law.
As members of the public, they are covered by no statutory noise limit at all. There is only voluntary guidance, which carries no legal force and is not enforced.
How long until the damage starts.
Hearing damage is a dose: louder sound reaches the daily limit far faster. Using the same exposure rule as workplace noise regulations, a single night out can deliver more than a full working week’s permitted dose.
Based on the equal-energy rule used in UK and EU noise law, where the permitted exposure time halves for every 3 dB increase in sound level. A typical gig or club night runs for hours at levels where the daily dose is reached in minutes. Even the 85 dBA work limit is not a safe level: it is the point at which the law requires action, and repeated exposure over a working life still carries a real risk of permanent hearing loss.
The damage is permanent. And it’s building.
Noise-induced hearing loss cannot be cured. The hair cells in the inner ear do not grow back. Every unprotected exposure adds to a total that only ever rises, and the trend across the population is going the wrong way.
We have already proved this is solvable. Since the law was introduced, hearing damage at work has been falling. The same approach, a clear and suitable legal limit, could do for audiences and listeners what it has done for workers. Without it, we are choosing to let a generation lose its hearing.
Britain’s neighbours already act.
A WHO review identified Belgium, France and Switzerland as having the most comprehensive rules protecting audiences’ hearing. All set a legal sound limit. The UK sets none.
Venues must record sound levels and keep them for six months, display the level near the sound desk, inform the public of hearing risks, provide free hearing protection, and create rest areas below 80 dB. Where an acoustic impact study requires it, venues must install sound limiters that automatically reduce or cut power if limits are exceeded.
Provide free earplugs plus a three-band system: below 85 dB, no action. Between 85 and 95 dB, display sound levels. Above 95 dB, strict monitoring and recording.
Peaks must never exceed 125 dB. Above 93 dB, organisers must warn the audience. Hearing protection is available free at all events.
An agreement between Government and the music industry rather than statutory law. The Dutch covenant has been in place since 2014. Even these voluntary schemes go further than the UK’s.
The HSE recommends audience areas stay below an Event average (LAeq) of 107 dB, but this is guidance, not law. The Live Music Act 2012 deregulated small venues. The government’s 2025 plans on music venues are about protecting venues from residents’ noise complaints, not about protecting audiences from hearing damage.
A Swiss Federal Health Office adviser, ranking the safest countries to hear a concert, put Britain in the other column: not a safe place for hearing, because there is no legislation regulating noise levels. Federal Office of Public Health, Switzerland, via swissinfo
Decades of protection for workers. None for audiences.
A short history of UK noise regulations. The gap between how the law treats a worker’s ears and an audience’s ears has only widened.
Set a legal limit of 85 dB on amplified music and speech, matching the limit that already protects people at work. The fix is quick, easy and costs nothing: turn the sound volume down.
It took a law to protect workers. It will take one here too.
This is preventable. The technology exists, other countries already do it, and the cost is close to nothing. What is missing is the political will. Here is how to help build it.
Share this page
Send this to anyone who goes to gigs, has teenagers, or works in a venue.
Raise it with your MP
Ask your MP why amplified sound has no legal limit when workplace noise has had one since 1990, and whether they will support introducing an 85 dB limit for all forms of amplified sound.
Protect your own ears
Turn it down, take earplugs to gigs etc. and wear them. Use the volume warnings on your phone. Free hearing checks are available through the RNID.
About this campaign
This is a campaign by David Kilpatrick of Advanced Noise Solutions, a UK noise control specialist with over 40 years’ experience of reducing industrial noise at work to reduce the risk of workers suffering hearing loss and tinnitus. The company also resolves noise nuisance complaints for residents living near industrial companies throughout the UK. David has spent almost his entire working life protecting people’s hearing by reducing noise at work. He feels very strongly that the same protection should apply when enjoying leisure activities that use amplified music and speech. That means applying the same legal limit to amplified sound as for noise at work.
More on the health effects of noise: advanced-noise-solutions.co.uk/noise-effects
Primary sources
- RNID survey of 2,000 UK young adults, July 2025
- WHO / Dillard et al, BMJ Global Health, 2022
- WHO Make Listening Safe initiative, 2015
- HSE: Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005; event noise guidance
- WHO review of Belgian, French and Swiss venue regulations
- UK Government licensing reforms announcement, July 2025
A wider warning
Hearing loss is increasingly linked to broader health risks. One UK Biobank study found that hearing impairment was associated with a higher later risk of Parkinson’s, part of a growing body of evidence that protecting hearing matters well beyond the ears themselves.