Learn about the fees associated with accessing UK Biobank data.

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Affordable access to ground-breaking research

UK Biobank is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to improving public health. We aim to keep access to our database as affordable as possible and only charge our researchers to cover the costs of handling access applications.

Fee structure

First 3 years – access to data with scheduled updates

Tier 1

  • Questionnaire and physical measurements
  • Health outcome phenotypes
  • Linked health data
  • Web-based questionnaires
£3,000

£1,000 per year extension

Tier 2

Everything from Tier 1, plus:

  • Biochemical and haematological assays
  • Other platform-based assays
  • Measured and imputed genotypes
  • Other enhancements

See note *

£6,000

£2,000 per year extension

Tier 3

Everything from Tier 2, plus:

  • Imaging data**
  • Other large-scale assay data
  • Whole genome sequence data
  • Whole exome sequence data
£9,000

£3,000 per year extension

Additional institution fee – each additional institution added to an application

£1,000 for the first 3 years (£500 per year extension)

Lower income countries and student researchers***

£500 for the first 3 years (£175 per year extension)

Notes on the fee structure

Fees are exclusive of VAT.

* Since 2022, to encourage use of the UK Biobank Research Analysis Platform (UKB-RAP), particular assay data and enhanced measures are currently being made available at no additional cost over and above the Tier 1 payment.

** Similarly, since 2022, also to encourage use of the UKB-RAP, imaging data are currently being made available at no additional cost over and above the Tier 2 payment.

*** Reduced access fees and financial support are available for student and early-career researchers and researchers from lower income countries. Find out more on our Financial Support page.

Costs for your analysis

In addition to the access fee, researchers using the UK Biobank Research Analysis Platform (UKB-RAP) will incur costs related to their analysis. These include:

  • Compute resources: Charges apply based on the computational power used, which varies depending on the type of virtual machine selected for your analysis
  • Storage of data: Charges apply for storing any data uploaded by researchers.
    Note: There is no charge for storing UK Biobank data that has been dispensed to a project, thanks to the generous support of Amazon Web Services (AWS).
  • Data egress: Charges apply for transferring data out of the UKB-RAP cloud environment

To help researchers manage these costs, all researchers receive £40 of credit upon joining UKB-RAP, and further financial assistance is available.

Supporting global research

Two people sit in front of a computer screen smiling

UK Biobank invests hundreds of millions of pounds in developing and managing our data, thanks to generous funding from our supporters. These costs are not passed on to researchers, allowing us to focus on enabling ground-breaking discoveries without financial barriers.

We are also committed to making our resources accessible to researchers globally. Financial support packages are available for eligible applicants, including:

  • students
  • early career researchers
  • researchers from low and middle-income countries

These initiatives reflect our dedication to fostering inclusive and impactful research.

Access financial support