Belonging Barometer
Landmark research tracking how people experience belonging today
The Belonging Barometer is the Belonging Forum’s landmark research series, exploring connection, isolation, trust, loneliness, and community across local and national life.
What is the Belonging Barometer?
The Belonging Barometer is designed to better understand how people experience belonging today.
It explores where belonging is strong, where it is under strain, and how people feel about the relationships, institutions, and environments that shape their lives. In doing so, it helps make belonging more visible and measurable – not as an abstract idea, but as something that affects how people live, connect, participate, and thrive.
Each edition adds to this growing body of insight, helping us understand how belonging evolves over time and how it is experienced across different communities and contexts.
Latest edition: Belonging Barometer 2026
The latest Belonging Barometer explores how people across the UK are experiencing connection, community, and representation in a changing social landscape.
Highlights from the 2026 Belonging Barometer
Connection has weakened in the 2020s
39% feel less connected to the UK since the pandemic
27% fewer opportunities to meet new people
Belonging is often strongest at local level
57% know neighbours well
60% help their neighbours
Belonging is also a measure of institutional trust
55% say UK Government reflects their views poorly
Only 13% believe government considers people like them
Browse the Barometer
Explore each edition of the Belonging Barometer in full.
Belonging Barometer 2026
The latest findings on connection, community, and representation across the UK.
Belonging Barometer 2025
Research exploring how belonging is experienced across local and national life.
Belonging Barometer 2024
Earlier findings helping build the longer-term picture of belonging over time.
Related research
Alongside the annual Belonging Barometer, we also publish timely insight through the Belonging Signal – a shorter-form research output exploring important themes, trends, and public attitudes.
Why the Barometer matters
Belonging shapes how people live, connect, participate, and feel at home in the world. Yet it is too often overlooked or treated as impossible to measure.
The Belonging Barometer helps change that. By making belonging more visible, it offers a clearer picture of how people experience connection, community, trust, and representation – and why those experiences matter for social cohesion, public life, and the health of our communities.
The Barometer helps reveal where belonging is strong, where it is under strain, and why that matters.
Who the Barometer is for
The Belonging Barometer is for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of connection, community, and social change.
Policy makers & public leaders
Researchers & educators
Journalists & commentators
Civil society
Members of the public
Community leaders
Explore the research
Belonging is not static. It changes with our relationships, our institutions, and the wider conditions of social life. The Belonging Barometer helps us understand those shifts and what they mean for the future.