The 11 Best Work Shoes for Men in 2023, Tested by Gear Experts

Durability: You'll want work shoes that will last beyond a few days or months at the job site. A lot of it depends on the material. Uppers made of leather or synthetic textile uppers always withstand tear and wear and will hold well. An outsole made of rubber or PU is often a no-brainer. Additionally, work shoes with strong stitching and reinforced toes will allow you to wear them again and again without issue.

Traction: The outsoles of work shoes should provide a high level of traction to make the bottoms extra slip-resistant, even on wet and oily floors you'll encounter at workplaces. These include special treads at the sole or designs that increase friction to the ground like lugged, grooved, ridged, deep-cut teeth, etc. In industries like healthcare, construction, or food service, a grippy outsole will come in handy to prevent you from slipping, sliding, or falling while working.

Comfort: If you're gonna be on your feet and keep at it for hours on end, especially on concrete floors or rough terrains, work shoes often come with superior insole and midsole that provide cushioning or arch support. The best work shoes often use memory foam and anything with impact-absorbing qualities to ground your feet in comfort. The right arch support, on the other hand, will distribute the weight evenly across the foot to make your feet less tired. Therefore, look for work shoes with anti-fatigue construction.

Fit: The best work shoes should not fit too loose or too tight, which is why many options come in various widths as well in addition to sizes. You'll lose your grounding in a pair that fits too loose, but if it's too tight, no amount of cushioning or arch support will make it comfortable—not when your feet are smooshed. However, if the work shoes are made of leather, a slightly tighter fit is preferable since the leather will mold to your foot. Unless the work shoes have steel toes which will take away a little bit of wiggle room, don't treat them like sneakers and size up. (With steel-toe work shoes, we recommend a half size up.)

Getting the right fit, size, and materials is only the start. If you're wearing work shoes to demanding job sites regularly, you'll want their comfort and durability to last, say, forever—and that's definitely possible.

Breaking Them In and Stretching

Breaking in work shoes to the extent that they actually fit comfortably is important, which means for the first few wears, you should expect to sacrifice some comfort just to get more of it down. the road. By gradually wearing them more, it helps to force the shoes to conform to the contours of your feet.

In addition, if it's taking too long to break in or you really need to put these work shoes to, well, work in just a few days, feel free to grab some shoe stretchers and just go at them. By the way, we've tested some of these best work shoes by wearing thick socks which do help stretch out the shoes faster.

Upgrading Insoles and Arch Support

Many of the top editors-tested work shoes will come with insoles that are already engineered to be more cushioning, comfortable, or more fatigue- and pain-reducing than regular insoles. If the ones you get don't or aren't your cup of tea, consider buying a new insole, one that will cushion better or help relieve pressure. In this case, we'd recommend going for memory foam or gel insoles.

Safety toe protection is the main safety standard you'll find in work footwear. It's a hidden “cage” that protects your toes from punctures, compression, crushing, and more. "Typically this protection is provided by steel at the toe, hence the common name, steel-toe boots," says David Nicholas, a professional electrician. But a steel toe can get heavy. "This extra weight becomes really noticeable after a long day on site and boots typically get quite uncomfortable," says Nicholas.

So, if weight is a concern, composite-based safety toes might be more your forte for protection. These composite toes "offer the same level of foot protection as metal but are considerably lighter and much more comfortable to wear all day long," according to Nicholas.

While every pair of work boots has a safety toe, it is not uncommon for work shoes to ditch them for a regular toe cap. Because, unlike work boots that are always meant for the most hazardous and demanding work environments, work shoes for men are more versatile and flexible.

Some work shoes are designed for standing and walking on hard but smooth surfaces of, let's say, hospitals or restaurants; some are primed for working in a modern factory. These kinds of jobs don't necessarily involve a hazardous environment where things might just happen to drop or crush or run over your toes, and therefore work shoes for these jobs can take a break from safety toes. On the other hand, if you want to wear work shoes to where work boots congregate—such as construction sites or warehouses—then please make sure your work shoes have either a steel or composite safety toe.

To find the best work shoes for men, our style and gear editors have personally tried on a variety of them and put them to the test on different grounds and job sites, from oily and slippery hard floors in a warehouse to bumpy and rough outdoor terrains like in an outdoor construction site.

From there, we evaluated these work shoes based on their style, fit, protection from the outsole and upper, comfort from the midsole and insole, and overall performance to make the final top picks. Specifically, we're looking for work shoe styles that are not trendy or trend-chasing; instead, our picks of the best work shoes all fit great even on any kind of worker who's on their feet all day, provide a ton of value at reasonable price points, and come in styles that will look great years from now.

At Men’s Health, we don’t produce product reviews that don’t actually involve testing anything hands-on or in person. For each product, we always use them ourselves first before considering whether to include them. Therefore, rest assured that our product recommendations derive from first-hand experience.

More importantly, at Men’s Health, we have a whole fashion closet dedicated to calling in, trying out, and selecting the best as well as the newest products. We put them on ourselves to see how the items look and feel before making our final decision. And we constantly go into the fashion closet to feel a product’s materials and test it.

Lastly, you can trust our opinions on product recommendations and tips. Not only do we have Fashion Director Ted Stafford and Deputy Editor, Commerce Christian Gollyan who know the materials, but we also have a panel of experts—including designers at top brands or retailers—whom we regularly seek shopping guides from. Therefore, our product recommendations and buying tips are all driven by professional, expert opinions.