nfpResearch co-Managing Director, Tim Harrison-Byrne, writes:
On 21 May, the ONS published its latest net migration estimate: 171,000 for the year ending December 2025. That is an 82% fall from the 2023 peak of 944,000. In our nfpIntelligence tracking, public concern about immigration has risen from 17% to 39% over the same period.
On climate, the pattern runs in reverse. Concern peaked at 40% in 2021 and has since fallen to 22%, while the evidence for a worsening climate has only strengthened.
But this is not the whole story. Not every issue has a perception gap.
Where concern tracks reality
Concern about the quality of NHS services peaked at 65% in June 2024 and has since fallen to 49%, as waiting lists have started to come down. Concern about war and instability sat below 8% before Russia invaded Ukraine, jumped to 35% in the first wave afterwards and has risen sharply again to 41% in our most recent data. Both make sense.
Public concern can follow the evidence. The question is why, on immigration and climate, it has stopped doing so.
Immigration: the public’s numbers are wrong
Polling by British Future, published on 21 May 2026, found that 49% of the public believe net migration has risen in the past year. Only 16% know it has fallen. The public estimates that asylum accounts for a third of all immigration. The actual figure is 9%. Study migration, which makes up over half of all arrivals, is estimated at less than a quarter.
Net migration at 944,000 was unprecedented. The concern is not irrational. But the public’s factual understanding of what is happening and in what direction, is wrong. Among Reform UK voters, 72% name immigration as a top concern. Among Green voters, 13%. Among baby boomers, 36%. Among Gen Z, 13%. The same set of facts produces completely different levels of concern depending on who you vote for and how old you are.
Climate change: the real puzzle
A quarter of the public say there is no evidence that climate change is happening, according to our nfpIntelligence data from June 2025. Concern has fallen from 40% to 22% over four years, while 2025 was confirmed as the UK’s warmest year on record and the Climate Change Committee found only 61% of the pathway to 2030 targets credibly covered.
Why? Three explanations, probably all true at once.
First, fatigue. Climate change has been in public discourse for over twenty years. There may be a ceiling on how long any issue can sustain urgency without a tipping point that people experience directly in their own lives.
Second, the conversation is shifting from prevention to adaptation. Bill Gates’ memo in November 2025, arguing that climate strategy should prioritise human welfare over emissions targets, drew enormous attention and fierce criticism. But it was a signal of something already underway. From net zero pledges being quietly revised to insurance companies pulling out of vulnerable areas, the practical response to climate change is increasingly about living with it rather than stopping it. When that becomes the dominant framing, urgency falls – even if the science says otherwise.
Third, crowding out. The UK wrong direction score in nfpIntelligence stands at 63%. War, cost of living and political uncertainty are consuming public attention. Climate does not feel immediate in the way these threats do.
The information environment
In both cases, accurate information is not getting through. On immigration, the public’s basic facts are wrong. On climate, the evidence is not translating into concern.
Our March 2026 data suggests people know this is a problem. 68% say they often come across unreliable information on social media. 56% worry about their own ability to identify trustworthy sources online. 61% are concerned about the removal of independent fact-checkers from Facebook and Instagram. The public is not unaware that the information environment is broken. They are navigating it with the same tools as everyone else – and losing.
What this means for charity communications
If your audience’s starting assumptions are factually wrong, evidence-based communication on its own will not cut it. This is the challenge for every charity that campaigns, fundraises or communicates on issues the public claims to care about. And it is not a challenge most charities are set up to meet. Communications teams are often small, under-resourced and measured on reach rather than influence. In an information environment where two-thirds of the public say they regularly encounter unreliable content online, reach is not the problem. Getting through is.
This was the focus of a CharityComms seminar in May – “Changing the story: comms that move the dial in polarised times” – where I presented some of this data alongside Frameworks UK and Bite Back. The sector needs more of this: practitioners sharing what actually cuts through, testing approaches against real data and treating communications as a core capability rather than an afterthought. Credit to CharityComms for putting the event together – I’d encourage anyone grappling with these questions to get involved with their work.