The UK Data Service will be closed from 17.00 on Friday 20 December 2024.  All services will fully resume on Thursday 2 January 2025. Online services will run unattended during this period.

Season’s Greetings to all our users.

Help

If you are new to our service, you may find the new user page or our help FAQs useful. Press enquiries for the UK Data Service should be directed to the Communications team.

The information you supply in this form will only be used for the purposes of investigation and responding to the enquiry. You can find out more on how we process your personal data in our privacy policy.

Your details

Your query

Please continue to complete this form to report problems obtaining data. For questions such as:

  • How do I download data?
  • How do I obtain special licence data?

More information about accessing data is available in our how to access section.

Please continue to complete this form to ask questions about analysing particular studies or variables, for example:

  • Should I/how do I weight my results?
  • Why am I missing a variable on my dataset?

You might also be interested in our guides, which provide information about using data. Our teaching resources also provide content that has been designed for self-paced learning as well as formal teaching.

Please continue to complete this form for questions about managing research data and preparing data for reuse that are not covered in our data management pages. These pages contain useful guidance on the topics below, and general advice about best practice for handling, looking after, documenting and enhancing research data, to ensure that high quality and sustainable data are created.

  • Anonymising data
  • Data documentation
  • Data storage
  • Transcribing data
  • Data security
  • Copyright and IPR of data
  • Data management planning
  • Data sharing

Please continue to complete this form for questions such as:

  • Can I deposit data with you?
  • How do I deposit data?
  • How do I complete the deposit forms?

Before contacting us you may find it helpful to consult our deposit data pages which include information on support for depositors.

Our data management pages contain useful guidance about documenting, formatting, storing and sharing data.

Please continue to complete this form for questions about existing projects or orders such as:

  • Can I request an extension to my Special Licence project?
  • When can I expect to receive the data I ordered?
  • I have a data destruction form. How do I return it to you?

More information about ordering data is available from download and order.

Please continue to complete this form to report any problems you may be experiencing with our online tools such as UKDS.Stat and Nesstar, and to send us any queries you have about their use.

For a list of our online services please visit explore online and explore census data.

You might be interested in our online analysis guides

This form is only for users of the UK Data Service Secure Lab to submit a request for an output to be checked.

Please allow up to five working days to receive a response which could be one of the following:

  • A confirmation that the outputs meet the minimum requirements and are not disclosive, with the requested material attached
  • A rejection of the output request, with clear reasons why the output cannot be released and (where possible) suggestions for improvement
  • An email query about the output

Please note that longer outputs can take longer to check so please do bear that in mind when planning your time.

Before making your request, please consider the following:

  • We only release outputs that meet the minimum requirements; results should therefore be readily understandable and clearly labelled (Secure Lab FAQs)
  • Allow yourself 24 hours between finishing an output and submitting this form
  • Plan ahead and be prepared to edit your work if we have a query about your output
  • We do not release MS Excel or PowerPoint files for data security reasons
  • You will not be able submit a new output request until this request is concluded
  • If you already have an open or in progress output request, do not submit a new request until that first request has been completed

Use this form to request an extension for a SecureLab project. The Project Lead must complete the form. Requests from team members will be queried with the Project Lead, thus delaying the request.

Please continue to complete this form to send us detail of any publications based on the data you have obtained from, or been given access to, by the UK Data Service. Please include the citation details and the study numbers of the data collections used.

Please continue to complete this form for questions about the registration process, such as:

  • How do I register?
  • What do I do if my registration has expired?
  • I'm not an academic - can I register with the service?

Please note that the form below is not our registration form. To find out more about the registration process please refer to our registration pages.

Use this form to make a request to use the Safe Room. Please note the following before submitting your request:

  • You must have approval in place to use the data before using this form
  • We will require at least three working days' notice for bookings
  • Your request remains provisional until the Helpdesk team confirms your booking
  • On Tuesdays, the Safe Room will be unavailable until 1pm

Please continue to complete this form for questions such as:

  • Do you have data about children?
  • Do you hold the Understanding Society data?
  • How do I find data on unemployment?

Our discover tool is designed to help you find the data and related resources you need.

For the latest information about upcoming training and events see our news and events pages. Please use this form for any queries about events and training.

Answers to common problems can be found in our FAQ section.

Please continue to complete this form to report any technical problems encountered with services offered by the UK Data Service.

Please complete the form below noting the following details which will help us to identify and solve the problem:

  • What date and time did the error occur? (Please be as accurate as possible.)
  • What time did you reboot your PC and reproduce the error?
  • Describe the error and what you were doing when it occurred.
  • Provide precise details of any error messages that occur (verbatim).

Secure Lab users: before reporting a problem please first try restarting your machine as this often resolves the problem.

Please continue to complete this form if you have a query which does not seem to fit in any category?

If you are new to the UK Data Service a good place to start is our new user web page.

Please confirm that your output meets the following minimum requirements. Outputs not meeting all of these requirements will not be released.

Project Lead details
Project details