Read a message from our CEO, Professor Sir Rory Collins, sent to participants on 3 June 2026.

Read our participant communication, sent to participants at the end of April and in early May 2026.

Participant webinars

Are you a participant who wants to learn more about what the data security report means for you?

Join us at an upcoming webinar to hear more about what happened, the actions that have already been taken, and our commitment to implementing all recommendations in full.

We follow the lives of half a million volunteers to learn who falls ill and why, so scientists around the world can create better ways to diagnose, prevent and treat diseases for everyone, everywhere.

Researchers worldwide use our data, tools and support to make discoveries which otherwise wouldn’t be possible.

Understand how UK Biobank is improving the health of everyone, everywhere, today and for the future in this overview video.

Our impact

Find out how healthcare is being changed by discoveries made with our participants’ data.

Irregular bedtimes increase the risk of developing conditions ranging from depression to bipolar disorder, data from 100,000 UK Biobank participants suggest.

Risk calculator developed with data from 200,000 UK Biobank participants estimates someone’s likelihood of becoming ill from excess body fat.

About our data

  • Who can use it?

    Researchers must go through our approval process to access the data.

  • How can I access it?

    We make the data available to researchers around the world via our restricted cloud-based platform.

  • Who are our participants?

    Our 500,000 participants were recruited between 2006 and 2010,
when they were 40 to 69 years old.

A close up of sample test tubes

“UK Biobank data is so vast, and so detailed. It has changed the way we do research in human genetics. We are beginning not only to understand the complex genetic basis of a whole variety of devastating human diseases, but also how to better use this genetic information to understand how to predict and treat these diseases.”

Professor Nicole Soranzo, Senior Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute