UKSRG Guidelines Issue 5 — best practice for UK slip testing.

What is the UKSRG?

The United Kingdom Slip Resistance Group is the country's independent technical body on pedestrian slip resistance. It brings together test laboratories, equipment manufacturers, flooring industry technical specialists, regulators, and academic researchers. The HSE references UKSRG guidance as the practical companion to the British Standards.

Why Issue 5 (2016) matters

Issue 5 of the UKSRG Guidelines is the current edition. It covers, in significantly more procedural detail than the British Standards alone, how to:

• Plan a slip resistance assessment — including how to select test points
• Operate a pendulum tester correctly in challenging real-world conditions
• Condition the slider rubber and judge when it has reached end-of-life
• Apply water for wet testing in a way that produces reliable, comparable results
• Record and present results, including the structure of the test report
• Interpret PTV readings against the HSE risk classification bands

A pendulum slip test that does not follow UKSRG Issue 5 procedure may be technically compliant with BS 7976-2 in narrow terms but will frequently produce results that an experienced practitioner would not consider robust.

What Issue 5 changed

Issue 5 introduced or refined a number of practical points compared with earlier issues:

• Stricter guidance on slider conditioning frequency and method
• Updated wet-test water application procedure for repeatability
• Refined approach to test point selection in inhomogeneous floors
• Clearer guidance on when surface roughness (Rz) testing should accompany pendulum work
• Improved alignment with European standard BS EN 16165

UKSRG membership and accreditation

Surface Performance is a member of the UKSRG. Our technicians are trained on Issue 5 procedure and our test methodology references the guidelines explicitly. UKSRG membership is not in itself a quality mark — but combined with UKAS ISO 17025 accreditation, it forms the technical foundation that distinguishes serious slip resistance testing from the budget end of the market.

Reading the guidelines

The UKSRG Guidelines are available directly from the UK Slip Resistance Group. We recommend any UK organisation commissioning slip testing have at least a copy of the executive summary on file. If you would like our help interpreting them in the context of a specific site or testing programme, we are happy to advise.