Italy's PPE market consolidates at €1.9 billion, Assosistema data show

Italy's market for personal protective equipment (PPE) is worth about 1.9 billion euros and is consolidating rather than contracting, according to data from the research centre of Assosistema Confindustria presented on 17 September 2026 at Safety Expo 2026 – Sicurezza sul Lavoro in Bergamo.

A sector holding its ground

The figures, which refer to 2024, were released on the second day of the fair. ANSA reported that they point to the “substantial resilience” of the sector and to its “progressive consolidation”. The analysis describes a supply chain that is becoming more articulated and more specialised, with Italian companies playing a central role in developing innovative workplace safety solutions.

According to the same data, Italy accounts for 12.42% of the total value of the PPE market in the European Union. Read together with the 1.9 billion euro domestic figure, that share implies an EU-wide market of roughly 15 billion euros. For a sector that saw extraordinary demand swings in recent years, the message from the association is that volumes have settled and competition is now being decided on capability rather than on capacity.

Where Italian production is concentrated

The research centre identifies three main segments in which national manufacturing skills prove central:

• respiratory protection;
• safety footwear;
• workwear.

These three categories anchor the Italian supply chain and are where the consolidation described by Assosistema is most visible. A more specialised chain typically means fewer generalist suppliers and a larger share of value captured by firms that control design, materials and certification, rather than by distributors of standard imported product.

Comfort, worker acceptance and artificial intelligence

Claudio Galbiati, president of the Safety section of Assosistema Confindustria, linked the transformation of the market to the rising demands of users. Demand is moving towards devices that are more comfortable, more readily accepted by workers, and able to integrate new technologies. That shift matters commercially: protective equipment only performs if it is actually worn for a full shift, which turns ergonomics and materials into a competitive variable rather than a marketing argument.

Artificial intelligence was singled out among the innovations cited at the event as a key factor in three areas: product development, monitoring the correct use of equipment, and optimising the match between specific workplace risks and the protective devices assigned to them. Risk-to-device matching is the part with the most direct effect on procurement, since it bears on how buyers specify and audit what they purchase.

Bergamo as a meeting point for the chain

Andrea Pais, president of Safety Expo, said the event serves as a reference point for bringing together companies, products and professionals in the sector, according to Blasting News Italia. The second day of the fair was given over to the economic analysis of the segment, with a focus on how the needs of workers and of companies active in workplace safety are evolving.

For producers, processors and importers, the practical takeaway is that Italy remains a mid-sized but high-specialisation market inside the European Union, with a domestic industrial base strong enough to hold a double-digit share of EU value. Growth, on the association's reading, is unlikely to come from a broad expansion in volumes. It is more likely to come from product upgrades in respiratory protection, safety footwear and workwear, and from the technology layer being built around them.