What Does LG Mean on Safety Boots? Ladder Grip Explained

LG stands for Ladder Grip. It's an optional additional marking introduced in the 2022 revision of EN ISO 20345, and it certifies that a shoe's outsole has been tested for its ability to hold onto a ladder rung.

To be upfront: XNEXZ footwear does not carry the LG marking. Our shoes weren't tested for it, so if regular ladder work is part of your job, you should be looking at footwear we don't make. Details on why are further down.

Slip resistance and ladder grip are not the same test, and passing one tells you nothing about the other. A shoe can be excellent on a wet floor and untested on a rung.

What the LG Marking Actually Certifies

Almost every safety footwear code describes something happening to your foot: an impact on the toe, a nail from below, water from above. LG is different. It describes how the shoe behaves on a narrow horizontal bar.

The test focuses on the part of the sole that actually rests on a rung when you climb: the region between the heel and the forepart, underneath the arch. On most shoes this is the section that curves upward and away from the ground, so it never touches a floor at all. It's dead space in every other test, and it's the entire subject of this one.

For a shoe to pass, that arch region needs a transverse profile, meaning grooves or bars running across the sole rather than along it, of sufficient depth to seat against a rung and resist sliding. The standard sets a minimum profile height of 1.5mm in that area as the basis for the test.

Where the Test Came From

LG isn't a newly invented test. It was already part of the standard for firefighters' footwear, where ladder work is a core part of the job and the consequences of a slip are severe.

What the 2022 revision did was lift that requirement out of the firefighting specification and make it available as a standalone optional test for all safety footwear. The reasoning is straightforward: firefighters aren't the only people who spend their working lives on rungs. Electricians, telecoms engineers, roofers, scaffolders, HVAC installers, warehouse operatives on stock ladders and maintenance teams all climb regularly, and until 2022 none of them had a certification that spoke to it.

Why Slip Resistance Doesn't Cover This

This is the part most buyers get wrong, and it's worth being precise about.

Slip resistance testing measures a shoe against a flat surface. It loads the heel at the angle of a heel strike, and it loads the forefoot flat, then measures the coefficient of friction. Under the 2022 revision, a baseline version of that test became mandatory for all safety footwear, with an additional glycerol test marked SR. Our guide to non-slip safety shoes covers how those tests work.

A ladder rung presents a completely different mechanical problem. The contact area is a narrow bar rather than a plane. The load sits under the arch rather than the heel or forefoot. And the failure mode isn't sliding forward across a floor, it's the foot rolling off the rung sideways or slipping off the front.

Friction on a flat tile tells you very little about any of that. A sole compound can be superb on wet ceramic and still have a smooth, featureless arch that sits on a rung like a bar of soap.

Who Actually Needs LG

Ladder grip matters in proportion to how much of your day happens off the ground. Some rough tiers:

• Look for LG as a priority. Scaffolders, roofers, telecoms and aerial engineers, window cleaners, tree surgeons, and anyone whose job is fundamentally about working at height.
• Strongly worth having. Electricians, HVAC and refrigeration engineers, plumbers, painters and decorators working from steps, signage installers, and building maintenance teams. These roles climb daily but not continuously.
• Useful but not essential. Warehouse operatives using picking ladders, retail stockroom staff, and facilities workers with occasional access ladders. Worth having if the option exists at the same price.
• Not a factor. Roles that are entirely ground-level: most warehouse picking, delivery driving, indoor fit-out on finished floors, workshop and production line work.

If you're in the first tier, LG should be a filter you apply before anything else. If you're in the last, it's a feature you'd be paying for and never using.

The Honest Limits of an LG Marking

LG is a genuine improvement to the standard, and it's worth saying clearly what it doesn't do.

It's a laboratory test, not a guarantee. Passing means the outsole met a defined performance threshold under controlled conditions on a specified rung. Real ladders vary in material, diameter, wear and contamination. Mud, ice, oil and paint on a rung will affect grip in ways no marking accounts for.

It says nothing about the rest of your ladder safety. Footwear is the last line, not the first. Correct ladder angle, secure footing, three points of contact, load limits and inspection all matter more than sole geometry. Under the Work at Height Regulations 2005, ladders should be used only where a risk assessment shows more suitable equipment isn't justified, and your employer's duty to plan and supervise that work sits well above any question of footwear. Our overview of the UK PPE at Work Regulations covers where footwear fits into that wider picture.

Absence of LG doesn't mean a shoe grips badly on rungs. Because the test is optional, plenty of well-made boots with aggressive transverse tread patterns have never been submitted for it. Untested is not the same as failed. What you lose without the marking is verification, not necessarily performance.

It doesn't override site rules. An LG-marked low-cut shoe still won't get you onto a site that requires S3 boots with ankle coverage.

How Outsole Design Affects Ladder Grip

Understanding what the test looks for helps you judge footwear that hasn't been tested.

The feature that matters is a transverse profile in the arch: ridges or bars running across the sole, side to side, which can seat against a rung and stop the foot sliding forward off it. A sole with deep longitudinal grooves running heel to toe may look aggressive and do very little on a rung, because the grooves run parallel to the bar rather than across it.

Material matters too, though less than geometry. Softer, higher-friction compounds deform slightly around a rung and grip better, while harder compounds hold their shape and rely more on the profile. This is part of the wider trade-off between outsole materials, which we cover in our comparison of PU and rubber outsoles.

A quick sanity check you can do in a shop: turn the shoe over and look at the waist of the sole, the narrow part in the middle. If it's smooth, flat or hollowed out with no cross-pattern at all, it's not designed with rungs in mind, whatever the rest of the tread looks like.

Two Worked Examples

How to Check for LG

1. Read the full marking on the tongue label or insole stamp. LG appears alongside other optional codes such as SR, FO, HRO and WPA, after the base rating.
2. Check the standard version. LG only exists under EN ISO 20345:2022 and later. Footwear certified to the 2011 version cannot carry it, because the test wasn't available for general safety footwear then.
3. Ask the retailer or manufacturer for the certificate if the marking is unclear. The EU type examination certificate lists every tested property explicitly, and a reputable seller will provide it.
4. Don't infer it from marketing language. Phrases like "ladder-friendly sole" or "climbing grip" carry no certification weight. Only the LG marking on the certificate means the test was passed.
5. Check it against your employer's requirement. If your risk assessment specifies LG, footwear without it doesn't meet the requirement however good the tread looks.

Where XNEXZ Stands, Honestly

Suitable For / Choose Differently

The Honest Verdict

LG fills a real gap. Before 2022, a worker who spent half their day on rungs had no certification that measured the thing most likely to hurt them, and slip resistance testing was routinely mistaken for covering it. It doesn't.

If you climb regularly, treat LG as a filter rather than a bonus feature, and don't accept marketing language in its place. If you don't climb, it's a code you can safely ignore, and there are other properties on the label that will affect your working day far more.

Frequently Asked Questions