UK Voices: New Methods for Understanding the Impact of Social Change on Individual Lives, Work Package 1 Pilot Mainstage, 2025

The UK Voices pilot study aimed to help develop a new approach to collecting and using in-depth interview data. Its purpose was to test whether and how open-ended qualitative interview data could be collected at scale, to build a detailed and representative picture of the lives of people in the UK and support future research on a wide range of topics.

Details of the wider study, together with archived data from the scoping phase, are provided in Byrne, G., Elliott, J., Friese, C. (2025). UK Voices: New Methods for Understanding the Impact of Social Change on Individual Lives, 2024 available at DOI: 10.5255/UKDA-SN-857940.

The data in this data deposit comprises mixed methods data from 38 individuals who participated in the pilot mainstage, which explored the effectiveness of a Panel-based recruitment approach, as well as of the open-ended interview approach to gather detailed qualitative data at scale. The sample was drawn from NatCen’s Opinion Panel, Britain’s longest-running random probability-based panel. Details of sample characteristics are provided in the summary report.

The archived data includes demographic and attitudinal data drawn from responses to surveys in which the sample had previously taken part as members of the NatCen Opinion Panel, together with transcripts of individual interviews. The qualitative interviews openly explored participants’ life story accounts, as well as questions about their daily lives, neighbourhood and belonging, health and wellbeing, finance, and thoughts about the future. Reflections on the interview experience, including facilitators and barriers to participating in research of this nature, were also explored. Full details are provided in the summary report and documentation.