UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness: 2026

The UK Public Survey of Risk Perception, Resilience and Preparedness is a nationally representative survey of adults in the UK, carried out in order to understand what people think about different types of emergencies, and what steps – if any – they have taken to prepare for them. It is conducted to inform public communications on preparing for emergencies and to monitor trends. These are the headline findings from the second survey, conducted in 2026.

The 2026 survey was funded by the Cabinet Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The Behavioural Science and Insights Unit at the UK Health Security Agency assisted with survey design and quality assurance.

This publication provides the headline findings from the 2026 survey, which ran between 27 February and 11 May 2026. The core survey sample size was 10,791, with an additional 936 respondents recruited as part of an additional boost to ensure a minimum number of respondents in each Local Resilience Forum area in England. The results below use only the core survey sample so that results can be compared to those from the 2025 survey. The sample size for the 2025 survey was 10,536.

Throughout this report we refer to emergencies and disasters. For the purposes of this survey, emergency/disaster was defined as ‘any large-scale incident that could have significant impacts on health, life, property, or environment.’ Respondents were encouraged to think about events that could impact a number of people within an area, rather than an incident occurring to only one individual.

Alongside this publication, readers can access:

• This year’s questionnaire.
• Data tables containing summary statistics for the UK overall, as well as for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• Data tables that compare the 2026 summary statistics for each region (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), with those from 2025.Throughout the report, some charts refer to wave on wave (WoW) tables, which compare statistics from 2025 to 2026.
• Local Resilience Forum data tables containing data from 2026 only, providing indicative findings for each area in England.
• The technical report for this survey.
• Pre-release access list.

The purpose of this data release is to present high-level findings, not detailed statistical analysis of this data. High-level demographic breakdowns can be found in the relevant data tables.

Read the headline findings in full below.