National Risk Register 2025 edition

The National Risk Register 2025 was published by the Cabinet Office on 16 January 2025 as a PDF of 187 pages. The publication page describes it as outlining the most serious risks facing the United Kingdom. This entry gives its publication details and structure; the National Risk Register page explains how the scoring works.

What it is

The publication page says the register is the external version of the National Security Risk Assessment, the government's assessment of the most serious risks facing the UK, and that it provides the government's updated assessment of the likelihood and potential impact of a broad range of risks that may directly affect the UK and its interests. It is aimed at risk and resilience practitioners, including businesses and voluntary and community sector organisations. Information for individuals, households and communities is signposted to GOV.UK/Prepare.

The foreword is by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. It records that the Prime Minister established a Cabinet committee on resilience, that external experts have been brought in to challenge the classified assessments, and that the assessment has shifted to a dynamic process so that risks can be updated as frequently as needed. This edition is the first to align with that process.

Structure

Chapter 1 introduces the register: 89 risks within 9 themes, the distinction between acute and chronic risks, a table of key changes since the previous edition of August 2023, how the government plans for risk, and who should use the register.

Chapter 2 sets out the methodology: how risks are identified and owned by departments, the reasonable worst-case scenario, likelihood scored 1 to 5 over 5 years for non-malicious risks and 2 years for malicious risks, impact scored across 7 dimensions, expert challenge, the risk matrix, and a table of chronic risk themes and drivers.

Chapter 3 covers individuals and communities: preparedness advice, what the public can do during an emergency and in recovery, supporting communities and volunteering, guidance for responding organisations, and identifying people who could be vulnerable in emergencies.

Chapter 4 contains the risk summaries, grouped by theme:

• Terrorism, including attacks in public spaces and on transport
• Cyber, including attacks on health, transport, telecommunications and finance
• State threats
• Geographic and diplomatic risks, including disruption of gas supplies and oil trade routes
• Accidents and systems failures, from electricity and water failures to rail, aviation and maritime accidents
• Natural and environmental hazards, including storms, heatwaves, cold, flooding, drought, wildfire and space weather
• Human, animal and plant health, including pandemic and animal and plant disease
• Societal, including public disorder and industrial action
• Conflict and instability

What changed from 2023

Table 1 lists the changes made since August 2023 following reassessment. Scenarios were updated for cyber attacks on the health and social care system and on transport, disruption of Russian gas supplies, and failure of gas supply infrastructure. The likelihood score for conventional attacks on infrastructure fell from 4 to 3, and for disruption to global oil trade routes rose from 2 to 3. The impact score for a major outbreak of African swine fever rose from 2 to 3. Variations were updated for volcanic eruption, wildfire and highly pathogenic avian influenza, and the matrix was removed for the malicious drone incident.

What came after

The UK Government Resilience Action Plan 2026 Implementation Report states that a refreshed National Risk Register was published alongside that report, reflecting new developments including digital resilience failure, national disruption to data infrastructure, disruption to the criminal justice system, accidental damage to the national gas transmission network, interference in the democratic process and cyber attacks on critical national infrastructure. This entry describes the 2025 edition, which was the document at the publication URL above when read on 29 October 2026.

How it is used locally

The register says the classified assessment behind it is used by local resilience forums and their equivalents, that local partners produce community risk registers focused on the highest priority risks in each area, and that the national register should be read alongside the local one.