The latest Community and Engagement Survey showed that 18% of adults reported partaking in formal volunteering, “giving unpaid help to groups or clubs”, every month in 2025-26, compared to 2024-25’s figure of 17%.
Despite being a one percentage point increase on 2024-25’s stats, regular volunteering rates have failed to fully recover since the last pre-pandemic year in 2019-20, when the rate was 23%.
Some 31% of adults took part in less regular formal volunteering (at least once in the last twelve months) in 2025-26, a 3% increase on 2024-25’s figure, but also still below pre-pandemic levels, when 37% did so.
Meanwhile, 25% of people aged 16+ engaged with informal volunteering, defined as “giving unpaid help to individuals who are not a relative” at least once a month in the last 12 months, a one percentage point increase from 2024-25.
Some 45% of adults had participated in informal volunteering at least once in the last 12 months, a one percentage point increase on 2024-25 and a continued decline from 2021-22’s figure of 46% and 2020-21’s figure of 54%.
Older people remain age group most likely to volunteer
Conducted annually by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the survey is based on a nationally representative sample of adults in England.
Respondents aged 65 to 74 remained the age group most likely to volunteer, with one quarter (25%) of those in this demographic participating in formal volunteering at least once month.
Those aged 75 and over were the second most likely age group to regularly engage in formal volunteering, at 24%, while those aged 50 to 64 were the third most likely age group at 19%.
Meanwhile, adults aged 25 to 34 remained the age group least likely to engage in regular formal volunteering, at 12%, only a one percentage point increase on last year’s figure.
As was also noted in the previous year, people whose gender identity was the same as their sex registered at birth (18%) were less likely to participate in formal volunteering at least once a month than those people whose gender identity was different (26%), although both figures were a slight decrease on the previous year’s.
People from the “other sexual orientation” classification (24%) and bisexual people (22%) were more likely to participate in formal volunteering at least once a month than gay or lesbian people (18%) and heterosexual or straight (19%) people.
Work commitments remain greatest barrier to volunteering
The most common barrier to participating in formal volunteering was again cited as work commitments, at 51%, the same as last year’s figure.
This was followed by “I do other things in my spare time” (36%), and “I have to look after children” (21%).
The most common motivation for formal volunteering was “I wanted to improve things/help people” (51%), a 5% increase on the same reason cited in 2024-25.
This was followed by “the cause was really important to me” (31%) and "I had spare time to do it” (30%).
The report comes after the Royal Voluntary Service launched a digital platform, GoVo, late last year, with the aim of making volunteering more accessible and to increase volunteer numbers.
In March this year, it was reported that the digital platform had received more than a quarter of million visits from members of the public.
