Accessing UK Biobank data

The following document provides guidance on how to download the various different types of UK Biobank data:

This replaces the previous PDF version of the Data Access Guide.

The Data Access Guide does not cover how to access data via the UKB Research Analysis Platform (RAP); see here for information about using the RAP.

Please see the Understanding UK Biobank page for information about the data available, which also includes further information and reports about linkage data (Cancer, Hospital Inpatient, Death).

Data Dictionaries and Encodings

• Schema 1 contains meta-data related to data fields (including each field's main category)
• Schema 3 contains the meta-data for categories
• Schema 13 contains the category hierarchy
• Encoding values and meanings are held in Schema 5, Schema 6, Schema 7, Schema 8, Schema 11, Schema 12 and Schema 20

Please see the schema catalogue for more information.

UKB Synthetic Dataset

A synthetic version of the UK Biobank dataset has been created to allow large scale system testing using data which is comparable in size and constitution to the real dataset.

Further details regarding the methods used to create this resource and links to file downloads can be found on that page.

Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health