The UK government has stepped up its public preparedness messaging, urging households to take practical steps to cope with national emergencies ranging from extreme weather and prolonged infrastructure failures to cyberattacks.
The latest push builds on the government’s existing GOV.UK Prepare website, which was launched by then-Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden at the London Defense Conference in May 2024. The government subsequently published its UK Government Resilience Action Plan in July 2025, setting out a broader strategy for strengthening the country’s ability to withstand major disruptions.
In July 2026, the government published an updated National Risk Register, assessing the most serious risks that could affect the UK and its interests. The register is intended to help government departments, businesses, voluntary organisations and resilience planners prepare for potentially serious emergencies rather than predict that those events will occur.
The government has also announced a national public-awareness campaign aimed at helping people prepare for emergencies including extreme weather and cyberattacks. Officials say greater household preparedness can also allow emergency services to concentrate resources on vulnerable people and communities during major disruption.
What are these threats?
The threats identified by the government are wide-ranging and include cyberattacks, infrastructure failures, pandemics, extreme weather, flooding, power outages and other major disruptions.
Cybersecurity has become a particularly significant concern. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre said in June 2026 that around three-quarters of cyberattacks affecting organisations within the country’s critical infrastructure over the previous year were believed to be linked to state actors.
NCSC chief executive Richard Horne said hostile states including Russia, China and Iran were increasingly targeting systems underpinning essential UK services. The agency managed more than 200 cyber incidents affecting UK critical national infrastructure and its supporting ecosystem in the year to May 2026.
Those concerns intensified after reports that Iran-linked hackers had temporarily disrupted a small British energy facility. According to Reuters reporting on the incident, the government did not publicly confirm the attribution. Energy Minister Michael Shanks said the incident posed no threat to the national electricity system and did not result in wider power outages.
The government, energy companies, regulators and the National Cyber Security Centre have continued working together to assess threats and strengthen protections around critical energy infrastructure.
The updated National Risk Register also places greater emphasis on cyberattacks and wider digital resilience failures.
A major example of the potentially widespread consequences of technology failure came during the CrowdStrike outage in July 2024. A faulty software update affected an estimated 8.5 million Windows devices worldwide, according to Microsoft’s assessment of the CrowdStrike outage, causing widespread disruption across businesses and critical services. The incident was a technology failure rather than a cyberattack, but demonstrated how failures within interconnected digital systems can have far-reaching consequences.
Climate-related emergencies are another major concern. Government preparedness guidance covers hazards including heatwaves, storms, flooding, power cuts, water supply interruptions and phone or broadband outages. Official GOV.UK emergency guidance provides information on how households should respond to these different scenarios.
Pandemic preparedness has also been overhauled following lessons from COVID-19. The government published a new Pandemic Preparedness Strategy on March 25, 2026, setting out measures to rebuild readiness for future pandemics.
The strategy incorporates lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry and early findings from Exercise Pegasus, a large-scale national exercise designed to test the country’s ability to respond to another pandemic. The strategy includes measures intended to improve preparedness through 2030.
Guidelines for the public
The government’s message centres on practical preparedness rather than large-scale stockpiling.
During evidence to Parliament in July 2026, Cabinet Office minister Dame Angela Eagle said households should consider having enough basic supplies to cope for around 72 hours during serious disruption.
She referred to items including water, food, batteries, wind-up or battery-powered radios, first-aid supplies and sufficient essential medication. Her evidence to Parliament can be read in the official committee transcript.
The government’s emergency preparedness checklist recommends keeping useful supplies at home, including:
- a battery-powered or wind-up torch;
- a portable power bank;
- a battery-powered or wind-up radio;
- spare batteries;
- a first-aid kit;
- bottled water;
- non-perishable food that does not require cooking; and
- backup batteries for essential medical equipment where appropriate.
The government recommends a minimum of around 2.5 to 3 litres of drinking water per person per day for survival, citing World Health Organization guidance, while noting that people’s requirements vary depending on their circumstances.
A wind-up or battery-powered radio can also provide access to official information during a power outage when internet connections or mobile communications may be disrupted.
The objective is for households to remain reasonably self-sufficient during the immediate aftermath of an emergency, allowing authorities and emergency services to focus more resources on people and communities requiring the most assistance.
A broader shift toward national preparedness
The UK’s approach reflects a broader European focus on household and civil preparedness as governments respond to geopolitical tensions, cyber threats, infrastructure vulnerabilities and increasingly severe weather.
Sweden has developed an extensive civil-defence system designed to help society continue functioning during serious crises and, ultimately, war. The Swedish government provides households with the “In case of crisis or war” brochure containing practical advice about how people should prepare and respond during major emergencies. More information is available through the Swedish government’s civil-defence guidance.
Swedish policy says people who normally manage without public assistance should be prepared to cope independently for at least one week, allowing society’s resources to be directed toward those most in need.
Finland similarly launched a nationwide preparedness guide for incidents and crises in November 2024. It covers emergencies including prolonged electricity and water outages, telecommunications disruptions, extreme weather, pandemics and military conflict.
Finnish authorities advise households to be capable of coping independently for at least 72 hours, or three days, during a serious disruption. Finland’s official preparedness guidance says the period is intended to give authorities time to bring a situation under control and prioritise help for vulnerable groups.
The UK’s latest measures therefore form part of a wider effort to adopt a “whole-of-society” approach to resilience, preparing not only government and emergency services but also businesses, communities and individual households for potentially serious disruption. The government’s 2026 implementation report says preparedness across individuals, public services and infrastructure is increasingly important as the country faces a more complex and interconnected range of risks.
