Community and Engagement Survey: January to March 2026
This publication will provide quarterly results on how adults engage with DCMS sectors and their community, covering the period January to March 2026
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The Community pathway data tables in this release have been produced using the methodology of the Community Life Survey (CLS) to allow for robust comparability with the CLS time-series. This methodology differs from the approach used to produce the Engagement pathway data tables and the Participation Survey. We intend to reproduce the Community pathway data tables and the Community Life Survey time series using the Engagement pathway methodology in future to align the entire survey with a consistent methodological approach.
The Community and Engagement Survey (CES) is a continuous push to web survey of people aged 16 and over in England, designed to explore how people across England engage with their community and with culture, media and live sport and allows respondents’ views to be heard on a range of issues affecting their local area. In October 2025, the Community and Engagement Survey replaced DCMS’ Participation Survey and Community Life Survey.
The CES provides nationally representative estimates of physical and digital engagement with the arts, heritage, museums & galleries, libraries and archives, as well as engagement with tourism, major events, live sports and digital, and tracks the latest trends and developments across areas related to social action and empowering communities.
- Released: 31st July 2026.
- Period covered: January to March 2026.
- Geographic coverage: National, ITL2 area and Combined Authority for England.
- Next release date: September 2026 (quarterly data covering May to June 2026)
The Community and Engagement Survey is asked of people aged 16 and over in England. Currently there is no harmonised survey or set of questions within the devolved administrations of the UK. Data on many areas of the Community and Engagement Survey are available in the Scottish Household Survey, National Survey for Wales and Northern Ireland Continuous Household Survey.
The pre-release access document above contains a list of ministers and officials who have received privileged early access to this release of Community and Engagement Survey data. In line with best practice, the list has been kept to a minimum and those given access for briefing purposes had a maximum of 24 hours. Details on the pre-release access arrangements for this dataset are available in the accompanying material.
Our statistical practice is regulated by the OSR. OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.
You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards by emailing evidence@dcms.gov.uk. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.
The responsible statistician for this release is Emily Woodward. For enquiries on this release, contact cesurvey@dcms.gov.uk