Corporate report

UKHSA business plan: 2025 to 2026

Published 11 December 2025

Foreword from the Chief Executive

This, our UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) business plan for April 2025 to March 2026, will help us deliver on the third and final year of our Strategy for 2023 to 26. It will also ensure our specialist skills can contribute to the government’s missions in the years ahead, in particular those on health and economic growth.

UKHSA’s remit is to protect the nation from infectious disease and from other external threats to human health including chemical, radiological and environmental hazards. Using our scientific and operational expertise, we are also a critical contributor to safe and prosperous communities. We deliver these important outcomes by preparing for, and preventing, future health security hazards; saving lives and reducing harm through effective health security response; and building the UK’s health security capacity.

UKHSA routinely contributes directly to enabling healthier and more resilient populations, the cornerstone for a prosperous and growing society. Over the coming months we will continue to enhance our evidence-based preventative health protection interventions which reduce demand and costs for frontline services, improve better health outcomes for families and the workforce and increase economic growth and activity for the nation.

UKHSA’s work helps the NHS deliver patient safety (for example through infection prevention and control and work on antimicrobial resistance), high quality clinical care (through the use of diagnostics and specialist clinical advice), and improves timely access to primary and secondary care (by preventing the need for hospital admissions through our vaccination programmes). UKHSA also contributes to economic growth through its support for the life sciences industry. We create new scientific knowledge and insights, develop novel products to protect health and work with industry to support the commercialisation of evidence-based products in industry pipelines, for example by stringently evaluating new products and processes to generate robust data for scrutiny by regulators. In this way UKHSA’s science and partnerships support the effective research base needed to innovate to maintain a caring and cost-effective edge to the ongoing development of health services in the UK and globally. UKHSA provides highly specialised and often unique scientific facilities, expertise and data to support industry and academia in delivering life science opportunities.

These opportunities for health are not evenly distributed across society however and UKHSA also maintains an ongoing focus on analysing data, monitoring interventions, and taking action to reduce health inequalities. In all that we do we support the aim of a fairer Britain, where everyone lives longer, healthier lives and where avoidable differences in poor health outcomes are minimised. Much of our work is with and through Directors of Public Health, jointly delivering interventions in local communities and with local services and applying our expertise to protect the people and places most at risk.

UKHSA’s 3-year strategic plan rightly looked to the big challenges on the horizon for the UK’s health security including growing risks from vector-borne disease (transmitted by organisms, mostly arthropods, such as mosquitos and ticks) and the rise of antimicrobial resistance – with both these threats increasingly exacerbated by climate change; as well as the benefits from the development and application of new technologies in vaccination and genomics. 

In order to adapt to new health threats, we continue to strive for new ways to improve our scientific infrastructure and capabilities, whilst delivering a strong return on investment. We are working to harness the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI), safely and effectively, to help us achieve our goals and have recently delivered a change programme within UKHSA designed to reduce inefficiency, secure the right workforce capability and functionality, increase effective delivery and achieve better value for public money.

We have achieved this alongside continued delivery of world leading expertise and response capabilities, effectively managing multiple recurrent and novel health-related incidents and risks. Over the last financial year alone UKHSA has responded to 15,000 formally recorded incidents and 245,000 cases affected by a specific identified health protection risk. These incidents include the vital response to new clades (types) and transmissions of mpox; the ongoing surveillance and scientific investigation of the potential human risk posed by avian influenza (H5N1) and a concerted response to the recent rise in vaccine preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough.

UKHSA’s Business plan for 2025 to 2026 builds on our existing achievements and describes the actions we will take in the coming year to strengthen national security, support increased economic growth and in particular minimise the health protection risks, harms and outcomes experienced disproportionately by the most vulnerable in our communities.

The UK Health Security Agency

UKHSA works to reduce the impact of infectious diseases, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) incidents and other health threats by providing expert advice and guidance and by playing a leading role in preparing for, preventing wherever possible, and responding to health security threats. The agency is made up of a range of multidisciplinary teams that provide, scientific and operational leadership at national and local level, as well as on the global stage, to make the nation’s health secure.

UKHSA is an Executive Agency sponsored by the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and works closely with other members of the wider health system (including the NHS) to help protect lives and create a safe and prosperous society. UKHSA also has responsibility for delivering a range of statutory commitments on behalf of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and aspects of the services delivered on behalf of other government departments.

UKHSA operates in a range of locations, with core headquarters in London, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool and 3 main scientific campuses at Colindale, Porton Down and Chilton. The agency also has Radiation, Chemicals and Environmental Hazards (RCE) facilities in Scotland and Wales. There is a dispersed network of laboratory and other scientific facilities, and a network of 9 regional UKHSA Health Protection Teams (HPTs) which cover the whole of England to provide specialist support on all identified health threats and lead incident response as appropriate. These teams work closely with local authorities, directors of public health, and local NHS services to provide specialist support to prevent or reduce the impact of infectious diseases, chemical or radiological incidents and other major emergencies as required. UKHSA also has teams which work globally to support the efforts of our partners and UK Overseas Territories to strengthen global health security. This includes programmes funded by Official Development Assistance (ODA) through the DHSC as well as the Integrated Security Fund.

While UKHSA has some UK-wide responsibilities, issues of health protection are mostly devolved, meaning that the responsibility for almost all health protection matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland rests with the devolved governments and public health agencies. UKHSA is responsible for devolved matters in England and given the cross-border nature of health threats, the agency works in partnership with the devolved governments to respond to shared challenges. UKHSA also has a remit for the whole of the UK relating to some reserved matters of health protection, such as preparing for and responding to the effects of radiation on public health.

UKHSA’s Strategic Priorities

In 2023, the agency published a 3-year strategic plan that sets out UKHSA’s mission, vision, goals and strategic priorities. Meeting the needs of vulnerable and high-risk populations, places and settings is critical to all aspects of health security, and the strategic plan details how the agency will actively contribute to more equitable health security outcomes through the delivery of its activities and programmes. A framework has been established around three long-term goals, and all UKHSA work contributes to achieving one or more of the agency’s goals:

UKHSA’s goals	UKHSA’s strategic priorities
Prepare	Be ready to respond to all hazards to health	Improve health outcomes through vaccines
Respond	Reduce the impact of infectious diseases and AMR	Protect health from threats in the environment
Build	Improve action on health security through data and insight	Develop UKHSA as a high-performing agency

Achieve more equitable health outcomes

By progressing its priorities UKHSA supports economic growth through its contribution to the life sciences sector, which is underpinned by the agency’s scientific and commercial activities to foster innovation and collaboration between government, academia and industry. In planning and implementing all its activities UKHSA works constantly to deliver new approaches to maximise efficiency and effectiveness, and achieve greater value for money for taxpayers.

UKHSA’s business plan is an annual document that sets out the priority activities the agency will deliver in 2025 to 26 aligned to our strategic priorities. We will measure our success in delivering this plan through performance metrics that define the outcomes, outputs and targets UKHSA has set itself over the financial year. The business plan also outlines the activities that will enable UKHSA to deliver against the agency’s remit letter, which describes the agency’s statutory responsibilities and the Government’s priorities for UKHSA, such as the agency’s role in supporting the Government missions on economic growth and health. 

UKHSA’s work will be both directly and indirectly impacted by several risks. The increasing severity and frequency of extreme climate events as well as international economic and political instability, and territory conflicts, will create more international health incidents requiring support. The resulting increased international cross-border population movement could create further public health challenges. This and other long-term demographic changes, including an ageing society, will create pressures on public services, including housing and health services. Tackling the increasing risk of AMR remains a key global health priority for science, for investment and for surveillance. Without effective modern antibiotics, other antimicrobial treatments, vaccines and diagnostics, there could be widespread morbidity and disruptions to health functioning and increasing morbidity and mortality from what are currently routinely treatable conditions, such as resistant infections in patients undergoing cancer treatment, major surgery or in patients with trauma or immunosuppression. Technological innovation and artificial intelligence present opportunities as well as risks such as the spread of misinformation and disinformation and driving adverse health inequalities in communities which are digitally excluded. Our plan has been built with these risks in mind.

Prepare: Be ready for, and prevent, future health security hazards 

UKHSA enables the country to be prepared for - and wherever possible to prevent - future health security hazards. UKHSA proactively seeks to understand which threats are on the horizon; develops the right evidence, insight and tools to use to best protect against them; and has the right tested response plans in place to protect the population.

Strategic priority 1: Be ready to respond to all hazards to health

To deliver this in 2025 to 26, the agency will: 

1. Respond to acute public health threats and incidents, providing leadership at regional and national level.

2. Monitor emerging infectious diseases and risks both within and outside the UK.

3. Maintain readiness to respond to all emerging risks and health hazards in the UK.

4. Deliver international public health, health security and disaster risk reduction functions to protect the UK population. Work with global partners to strengthen global health security.

5. Provide health policy leadership, providing assurance and policy development across the wider health system.

6. Maintain specialist technical, scientific and clinical capabilities to monitor and respond to health threats.

To strengthen UKHSA’s ability to deliver, in 2025 to 26 the agency will:

7. Improve incident response and management capability, and thus deliver effective, efficient, evidence based and scalable operational responses.

8. Improve preparedness and surge response capability across case contacts, outbreaks, diagnostic and testing services.

9. Improve availability of information to incident teams through strengthened capture, collation and management.

10. Strengthen coordination with external partners in response to incidents.

11. Improve people capability, capacity and wellbeing to fully enable response.

12. Increase the availability of high quality and timely surveillance by evaluating novel methods, reducing time taken to provide and process, and improving connections between data sets.

Strategic priority 2: Improve health outcomes through vaccines

We will harness UKHSA’s strengths across the whole vaccine pathway to facilitate innovation in the development of safe and effective vaccines, reliable procurement and increased confidence and uptake among the population, thereby reducing the burden of infectious disease and the risks of antimicrobial resistance.

To deliver this in 2025 to 26, the agency will: 

1. Consider candidate vaccines to inform decision-making on both new vaccination programmes and strengthening pandemic and epidemic preparedness and response.

2. Procure and stockpile vaccines to protect NHS programmes across the UK.

3. Support the delivery of vaccination programmes, working with the NHS and the wider health system.

4. Lead the public heath contribution in the design and implementation of new immunisation programmes by providing scientific and public health expertise and guidance.

5. Monitor and evaluate vaccination programmes to inform future change to maximise impact, effectiveness and value for money.

To strengthen UKHSA’s ability to deliver, in 2025 to 26 the agency will:

6. Maintain support for the development and availability of vaccines that are required to mitigate the health impacts of identified priority pathogens.

7. Implement changes to the vaccination schedule, including the introduction of the new varicella vaccination programme and the national rollout of the gonorrhoea and mpox vaccination programmes.

8. Increase the evidence base available to optimise the public health benefit from existing vaccination programmes and strengthen uptake across population sub-groups.

Respond: Save lives and reduce harm through effective health security response

UKHSA protects people from health threats on a daily basis. We deliver agile, rapid, evidence-based responses at a local, national and international level. UKHSA responds to infectious disease outbreaks and environmental risks, health security incidents, and ongoing health security threats.

Strategic priority 3: Reduce the impact of infectious diseases and AMR

We will harness our science, analytical and operational expertise to minimise the impact of infectious disease, with a focus on antimicrobial resistance and targets to eliminate the public health harm from blood-borne viruses and tuberculosis.

To deliver this in 2025 to 26, the agency will: 

1. Mitigate and minimise the impact of infectious diseases in the UK, including through disease control and health protection functions.

2. Maintain understanding of current threats and risk levels to inform decision-making, including through surveillance, reporting and risk assessment.

3. Monitor the effectiveness of interventions, identifying opportunities to strengthen and maximise the effectiveness of mitigations.

4. Support UK efforts to respond to AMR through the 2024 to 2029 National Action Plan.

5. Strengthen UKHSA’s pathogen genomics capability to protect public health.

To strengthen UKHSA’s ability to deliver, in 2025 to 26 the agency will:

6. Further progress disease elimination targets by leading system wide efforts to achieve and sustain national and global commitments on Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV and TB, and reduction in sexually transmitted infections.

7. Reduce the impact of antimicrobial resistance by strengthening the surveillance of drug-resistant infections, and incentivising industry to develop the next generation of treatments.

8. Use genomics to rapidly identify risks, improve understanding of patterns of disease transmission, make decisions about interventions, and support the development of diagnostics.

9. Embed a systematic approach to working with the NHS to respond to emerging infectious diseases.

Strategic priority 4: Protect health from threats in the environment

We will protect the population from the health effects of environmental, chemical, radiological and nuclear incidents by improving planning and preparedness and providing public health expertise to inform policy and response.

To deliver this in 2025 to 26, the agency will:

1. Maintain preparedness and capability to respond to chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats and incidents.

2. Maintain preparedness and capability to respond to environmental threats to health and incidents.

To strengthen UKHSA’s ability to deliver, in 2025 to 26 the agency will:

3. Improve preparedness for chemical, radiological and nuclear threats and incidents including through the sharing of up-to-date information and public guidance.

4. Increase UKHSA and UKHSA’s stakeholder capabilities to prepare for, respond to, and build resilience to climate-related threats to health security through guidance and digital products and services.

5. Increase the evidence base on the health impacts of the built environment so that UKHSA has the expertise to lead on public health practice to protect the population.

6. Increase the understanding of the health impacts of exposure to environmental hazards (including air and water quality) and any potential mitigation measures.

7. Improve preparedness for and response to endemic and emerging vector-borne disease risks, maintaining capacity to model transmission and improving surveillance and testing capacity.

Build: Develop the UK’s health security capacity

UKHSA continues to build and invest in the scientific, public health and operational capabilities needed to protect the country’s health now and in the future. UKHSA is modernising approaches and technology, ensuring the agency is truly a high-performing and efficient agency and fit for purpose to deliver the UK’s long-term health protection needs.

Strategic priority 5: Improve action on health security through data and insight

Data and insight are critical enablers of effective health protection. We will capitalise on our partnerships and maximise the health impact of the data we hold, the evidence we generate and the insights we draw, to be a leader in the safe and regulated handling and use of public health data, analytics and surveillance to inform action.

To deliver this in 2025 to 26, the agency will: 

1. Inform government decision making on health through data analysis and assessments.

2. Ensure a safe data environment with secure, lawful, and efficient use of UKHSA’s information and data in compliance with the required data security standards.

3. Maintain the necessary platforms, tools and data architecture to support delivery of UKHSA’s work.

To strengthen UKHSA’s ability to deliver, in 2025 to 26 the agency will:

4.Create a unified view of surveillance capabilities, processes, and objectives, maintaining the ability to identify and gain access to data, and a strategic approach to capability development.

5. Increase the agency’s ability to get the best value from data to develop impactful, actionable and trustworthy analysis, evidence and insight for our stakeholders locally, regionally and nationally.

6. Improve the agency’s data maturity to ensure faster, more accessible, and effective data management.

Strategic priority 6: Develop UKHSA as a high-performing agency 

UKHSA has been through a period of transition, integrating strengthened capabilities developed during the pandemic with a physical and digital estate inherited from our predecessor organisations. We will ensure that within available resources UKHSA is maximally ready to prepare for and respond to health security challenges, at scale as required, investing in our people and culture; partnerships and relationships; data, science and research; operational excellence; and technology platforms and capabilities.

To deliver this in 2025 to 26, the agency will: 

1. Strengthen the agency’s laboratories and science estate.

2. Maintain high-quality communications to the public, stakeholders and staff to support delivery of UKHSAs mission.

3. Ensure robust, proportionate commercial processes, systems and governance that protect the taxpayer’s interests, empower staff, deliver value for money and equip us to work confidently and collaboratively with partners.

4. Deliver a workforce plan and secure operational excellence and efficiency in resource management systems and procedures.

5. Optimise the agency’s financial management and governance frameworks.

6. Invest in the required technology platforms and capabilities to ensure data can be managed lawfully and securely to deliver on the agency’s priorities, closing down or remediating legacy technical estate.

7. Increase service quality and ensure compliance with statutory duties and government policy.

To strengthen UKHSA’s ability to deliver, in 2025 to 26 the agency will:

8. Increase the impact of science and research on health protection priorities.

9. Improve the quality of corporate information available to UKHSA to enable effective, evidence-based decision making.

10. Increase UKHSA’s influence in and the quality of partnerships and relationships to ensure effective health protection systems locally regionally and nationally.

11. Enhance operational effectiveness by improving leadership capability, streamlining HR, finance and corporate processes, and strengthening change management, and enhancing staff connection to UKHSA.

12. Ensure UKHSA continues to be able to utilise data to perform its mission, through remediation of legacy technical debt and improvements to policies and processes for secure and lawful data management.

13. Take advantage of artificial intelligence in tooling and culture, delivering productivity and increased effectiveness in our ways of working and our outputs.

Achieving more equitable health security outcomes

As set out in the Health Equity for Health Security Strategy 2023 to 2026, UKHSA is committed to understand the needs of those individuals and groups at greatest risk to support equitable outcomes. UKHSA has therefore adopted and adapted the NHS CORE20PLUS framework to identify the populations to consider routinely. The agency works closely with partners, including DHSC, NHS, other government departments and local government to deliver impact through provision of evidence, data and advice on how to achieve more equitable outcomes in infectious disease and environmental hazards for these population groups.

In 2025 to 26, the agency will continue to deliver on the agency’s Health Equity for Health Security Strategy (2023 to 2026) to embed a health equity approach across all UKHSA’s activities including emergency response.

To achieve this, UKHSA will:

1. Build our data infrastructure and standards around collection, analysis and reporting to increase the visibility of CORE20PLUS populations across our surveillance products.

2. Develop, deliver and share co-produced ‘people and place’ approaches to health protection to tackle multiple hazards in populations most at risk aiming to build trust and empower communities to protect their own health and strengthen preparedness.

3. Establish best practice, and enable the development and delivery of accessible, culturally competent public health messaging.

4. Embed health equity and legal duties into existing governance processes and frameworks across the agency.

UKHSA’s 2025 to 2026 core budget

Group	Group description	Core (£m)	Capital (£m)
Chief Scientific Officer	The CSO Group leads on the delivery of a range of services including Public Health Microbiology; Radiation, Chemicals, Climate and Environmental Hazards; Scientific Facilities and Evidence.	146.7	54.50
Chief Medical Advisor	The CMA Group leads and delivers services protecting the population from hazards locally, nationally and globally. It provides trusted clinical and public health leadership through expert advice, guidance, epidemiological insights and evidence.	146.1	15.40
Chief Data Officer	The CDO Group enables the UKHSA mission by delivering secure public health digital and data capabilities, surveillance and intelligence; and threat analysis and assessment to enable effective response.	128.0	48.30
Chief Operating Officer	The COO Group functions support other agency teams in achieving their goals and directly executes critical functions integral to our mission including communications, commercial, finance, people and policy.	87.4	4.50
Central Allocation (inc. Dysport)		- 82.2	0
Total Core UKHSA		430.9	122.70
Covid Vaccines Unit		581.3	0