Future-proofing your body means treating musculoskeletal health as capacity you build, not injury you treat. By the time pain forces the conversation, the cost has already landed.
HSE figures for Great Britain in 2024/25 show 511,000 workers with a work-related musculoskeletal disorder. Those disorders cost 7.1 million working days, around 14 days per affected person.
Absence is the smaller risk; exit is the larger one. Around 300,000 people a year leave work entirely with work-limiting health conditions, and MSK is among the leading causes. Once out, they are almost three times less likely to return. The Commission for Healthier Working Lives estimates a more proactive approach to employee health could keep at least 100,000 more people in work over five years.
“Intervening early can help people with health conditions to stay healthy and in work.”
Sacha Romanovitch OBE, Chair, Commission for Healthier Working Lives
Prevention is unglamorous and effective. It looks like movement varied through the day, strength maintained rather than assumed, workstations fitted to the person, and a culture where early niggles get mentioned before they become absences. People hide discomfort when they fear looking fragile, so normalising early conversations matters most.
The body you’ll work in at 60 is being built by the working pattern you have at 40.