Open access

Quick access without the need to register

Researchers may access open data collections without the need to register or login. You can browse our data catalogue for open data collections and then download or access them directly.

An increasing number of our datasets are available in this way. These data are for use with an open licence and are not classified as personal.

By preference, the Open Government Licence is used where data collections are Crown Copyright and Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License used (when available) where data collections are copyright others. Exceptions will apply for some data collections. We do not need a depositor’s licence to provide access to, or preserve, data licensed under these regimes, but in some cases we may have one.

We are also working to gain open data certification via the Open Data Institute and it is our explicit long-term goal to work with data owners to identify and remove all unnecessary barriers to research access.

Access open data in the UK Data Service catalogue


Useful links