Since leaving the EU, the requirements for placing work equipment and machinery on both the UK and EU markets, including the complex process of arranging for conformity assessment, marking and labelling have changed somewhat.
It goes without saying that the government’s main priority with regards to this issue is to ensure that only completely safe and compliant products are placed on the market. The changes made to the UK’s legal product safety framework will allow it to remain operable.
The UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) mark is the new UK product mark for workplace products and other goods. From January 2021 UKCA marking began to replace CE marking for goods being placed on the UK market. CE marking is used by manufacturers or importers to affirm its conformity with European health, safety, and environmental protection standards for products sold within the European Economic Area. This makes the CE marking recognisable worldwide even to people who are not familiar with the European Economic Area but from January 2022 manufacturers and importers must use the UKCA mark on all workplace goods and products.
To give companies time to adjust to these changes, until 31 December 2022 the UKCA mark can be placed directly on the product or on an accompanying document however from 1 January 2023 the UKCA mark must be placed directly on the product. It is important to note that the UKCA mark will not be recognised for products being placed on the EU market.