Welcome to the UK Data Service
Trusted access and training to use the UK's largest collection of economic, population and social research data for teaching, learning and public benefit.
Highlights
Introducing the UK Data Impact Fellows 2025-26
The Data Impact Fellows programme is designed to support the use of UK Data Service data and resources by new generations of researchers and analysts working in the academic sector and in UK registered charities.
The UK Data Service Dissertation Award 2024-25
The UK Data Service Dissertation Award for the 2024-25 academic year is now open to submissions. Send your entry in by Wednesday 18 June 2025 to be in with a chance of winning a £300 voucher.
Call for papers: UK Census User Conference
Our call for proposals is now open for presentations and posters at the UK Data Service UK Census User Conference, which will take place in central Manchester and online on 12 – 13 June 2025.
Upcoming training and events
Our impact
No progress: breaking the cycle of long-term insecure work
In this Data Impact blog post, Rebecca Florisson, from the Work Foundation, discusses the issue of long-term insecure work.
How are children’s social, emotional and behavioural outcomes impacted by poverty?
This case study looks at the importance of social factors in mitigating disparities in the lives of young people in areas such as poverty, health, housing and discrimination.
The Good Childhood Report 2023
The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Reports provide an annual overview of the current state of children’s subjective well-being. Read about how they make use of data from our catalogue, in this case study.
Seamless access to key data: explore by themes, types, and teaching datasets
Discover a wide array of national and international key datasets across various categories.
Watch our data skills training webinars
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Watch and learn all the latest data skills from our free webinars, training and video tutorials.
Dissertation projects: Introduction to secondary analysis for qualitative and quantitative data
We take you through the research process of a secondary analysis project, including an overview of the methodological and ethical issues. Learn how to access and get started with quantitative and qualitative data.
Ethical and legal guidelines in data sharing
Find out about the relevant data protection legislation, such as the Data Protection Act and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). Learn about strategies that enable ethical and legal data sharing.
Ignite discovery: elevate your research with data deposits
Deposit your research data free, in our ESRC funded data catalogue.
Latest news
Latest data collections and new editions 28 January 2025
An update of our latest data releases. The following new datasets have been released: SN 9335 Living Costs and Food Survey, 2022-2023 SN 9337 Next Steps: Sweep 9, 2022: Geographical Identifiers, 2021 Census Boundaries: Secure Access SN 9325 Addressing Health Pensions Database, 1860-1908 SN 9332 Commercial Victimisation Survey, 2023 SN 9333 Understanding Society: Calendar Year […]
New introductory research data management course materials published
A series of freely available, open-licensed training materials has been published by the UK Data Service. The practical training resources, created as part of an initial Population Research UK (PRUK) project, can be used, shared and adapted by the Longitudinal Population Studies (LPS) community and other data professionals to improve data management strategies and enhance […]
New release of European Language Social Science Thesaurus
The European Language Social Science Thesaurus (ELSST) is a broad-based, multilingual thesaurus for the social sciences. It is available in fifteen languages: Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. The ELSST is owned and published by the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA). New innovations […]
Who makes us special?
Our podcast series, The Experts’ Expert, showcases some of the unique work we do to enable evidence-led research for public benefit.
