Capability agenda
Generated 2026-10-03
The frame includes 125 countries. Each dimension is scored from 0 to 100, with no overall ranking, and each score shows its confidence beside it. Read the known limits of the data before you quote a score.
Open the profile: indicators, values, years and sources
| Dimension | Score | Confidence | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anticipation | 71.8 | 0.46 | +3.3 over 10 years using 2 indicators |
| Agency | 92.7 | 0.41 | no trend |
| Coordination | 90.5 | 0.23 | no trend |
| Trust | 90.5 | 0.30 | no trend |
| Learning | 80.3 | 0.55 | no trend |
| Experimentation | 70.2 | 0.33 | +20.7 over 10 years using 3 indicators |
| Adaptability | 70.5 | 0.62 | no trend |
| Building | 62.8 | 0.57 | +0.3 over 10 years using 3 indicators |
| Shared Purpose | 75.6 | 0.28 | +3.3 over 10 years using 2 indicators |
Score
Confidence
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
Select a dimension to see how United Kingdom’s comparable evidence has moved over time. The vertical scale is the current comparison frame, from 0 to 100.
Dimension
Period
Shared Purpose 1976 → 2026: 77.9 to 75.6 (-2.3) over 50 years using 2 indicators
Historical values use today’s frame from 0 to 100 and a matched basket of indicators. They show movement in the available evidence, not an overall development score. Dated agenda items appear on a separate timeline and do not change the score. A missing line means the evidence does not support a comparable trend for that dimension.
The evidence is too thin to manage these dimensions confidently.
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
Uses 2 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: University-industry collaboration, Public-private collaboration.
Rejected datasets: Government effectiveness, Regulatory quality, Logistics performance.
To what extent can people imagine themselves as participants in a common project?
Uses 2 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Sense of national belonging, Volunteering, Political polarisation.
Rejected datasets: Voice and accountability.
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Trust in public institutions, Court case clearance rate.
Rejected datasets: Rule of law, Control of corruption, Intentional homicide rate.
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
Uses 4 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Venture deals, Firms through regulatory sandboxes, University spinouts.
Rejected datasets: Business share of R&D.
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
Uses 3 observed indicators.
Missing indicators: Adults doing digital tasks.
These dimensions score at least 50 with usable evidence.
| Dimension | Score | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| Learning | 80.3 | 0.55 |
| Anticipation | 71.8 | 0.46 |
| Adaptability | 70.5 | 0.62 |
| Building | 62.8 | 0.57 |
18 requested indicators have no comparable dataset, and each one lowers confidence. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
| Dimension | Missing indicator | What it asks |
|---|---|---|
| Anticipation | Government foresight capacity | Existence, mandate and continuity of a national strategic foresight function. |
| Anticipation | Long-horizon research commitments | New competitively awarded public research grants that run for five years or longer, as a share of all new competitive public research grants awarded in the year. |
| Agency | Adults doing digital tasks | Share of adults who carried out a named digital task in the last three months, such as sending a message with an attached file, moving a file between devices or using a spreadsheet formula, counted one task at a time and never as a skill level. |
| Coordination | University-industry collaboration | Intensity of research collaboration between universities and firms. |
| Coordination | Public-private collaboration | Frequency and scale of joint public-private delivery of national objectives. |
| Trust | Trust in public institutions | Confidence in national government, courts and civil service. |
| Trust | Court case clearance rate | Civil and commercial cases resolved in a year as a share of cases filed in the same year. |
| Learning | Adult learning participation | Share of adults in formal or non-formal education and training in the last 12 months. |
| Experimentation | Venture deals | First venture capital rounds closed by companies based in the country in the year, per million people, counted by deal and never by amount. |
| Experimentation | Firms through regulatory sandboxes | Firms admitted to, and firms completing, a regulatory sandbox or controlled trial regime in the year, per million people, summed across every regulator in the country. |
| Experimentation | University spinouts | Companies formed to commercialise university research, per million people. |
| Adaptability | Disaster preparedness and recovery | Demonstrated capacity to prepare for and recover from major shocks. |
| Adaptability | Institutional responsiveness | Speed at which rules and public programmes are changed in response to new conditions. |
| Building | Large project delivery | Cost and schedule performance of major public infrastructure projects. |
| Building | Firm scale-up rate | Share of young firms reaching significant employment or turnover thresholds. |
| Shared Purpose | Sense of national belonging | Reported identification with and attachment to the national community, as distinct from pride in the nation. |
| Shared Purpose | Volunteering | Share of adults who volunteered time to an organisation in the last month. |
| Shared Purpose | Political polarisation | Degree to which political differences run along a single hostile divide. |
These are documented institutional changes in United Kingdom that the framework records as evidence. They appear beside the score and do not change it or its confidence.
England built a national network of early-childhood centres reaching 3,632 sites by August 2009, then closed or hollowed out a large part of it after funding was cut, with the official count at 3,123 by October 2017 and independent estimates near 1,000 closures.
The United Kingdom's financial regulator built the first regulatory sandbox in 2016, and by the end of 2022 had accepted 168 firms and products to test with real customers under supervision.
The United Kingdom's 2008 Climate Change Act made five-year emissions budgets a standing legal cycle set twelve years ahead, and by July 2026 seven budgets covered 2008 through 2042 while the first three had been met.
UKRI reported more than 1,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships running at one time and more than 1,100 Associate projects in May 2026, joining businesses with universities or other research organisations through jointly supervised innovation work.
The British Business Bank reported that government-owned British Patient Capital had committed £2.287 billion through 80 fund commitments, 10 co-investments and 18 Future Fund deals by 31 March 2024, with an underlying portfolio of 1,350 companies.
UK Research and Innovation's ICURe impact report says spinout companies from the programme secured £326 million in investment funding and created more than 1,400 jobs from 2014 onward, after research teams were trained and funded to test markets before deciding whether to spin out.
The Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd began building High Speed Two in 2020. The government cancelled everything beyond Birmingham in 2023. By May 2026 the London to Birmingham railway alone was estimated at £87.7 billion to £102.7 billion, more than double the 2020 Phase 1 estimate, with services from Old Oak Common expected between 2036 and 2039 against a 2012 plan to complete the full network by 2033.
The Department for Transport and Transport for London built Crossrail through Crossrail Ltd from 2009. The NAO put its forecast cost at 28% above the 2010 budget of £14.8 billion and its opening at up to three and a half years past the original December 2018 date. The central section opened in 2022 and carried 257.4 million journeys between April 2025 and March 2026.
The UK government set up the Vaccine Taskforce in April 2020, became the first country to authorise a COVID-19 vaccine and begin vaccination in December 2020, and by the end of October 2021 the NHS in England had given two doses to 85% of adults.
Participation of adults aged 19 and over in government-funded further education and skills in England fell from a recent peak of nearly 3.3 million learners in 2012/13 to 1.6 million in 2020/21, and stood at 1,798,970 in 2024/25, according to the Department for Education.
The UK's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which started in March 2020, had 8.9 million jobs on furlough at its peak on 8 May 2020 and supported 11.7 million jobs from 1.3 million employers before it closed on 30 September 2021.
HM Treasury's Private Finance Initiative signed on average 55 contracts a year between 1997 and 2010 and left 704 current PFI and PF2 projects with a capital value of £57 billion at 31 March 2018, after signings fell to an average of nine a year after May 2010 and the Chancellor announced at Budget 2018 that the government would no longer use PF2 for new projects.
Fill a gap, file evidence or challenge an indicator at github.com/envisioning/national-capability-benchmark. The docs explain the method and decisions.