YouGov’s weekly voting intention tracker is the most widely cited continuous poll in British politics. The May 2026 data shows Reform UK at 28%, Conservatives at 19%, Labour at 18%, Greens at 15%, Lib Dems at 13%, and SNP at 3%. Below we explain precisely how these numbers are produced, what the sample size means for margin of error, and how to read the weekly data.
Latest YouGov Numbers: May 2026
YouGov GB voting intention tracker, fieldwork 7–13 May 2026. n=2,108 GB adults. Figures rounded.
YouGov Methodology Explained
YouGov conducts its weekly voting intention tracker online, drawing respondents from its proprietary panel of approximately 1.8 million UK adults. The panel is recruited through multiple channels including website registrations, referrals, and partner sites. Crucially, YouGov uses a non-probability sampling method: respondents are not drawn at random but are selected and weighted to be representative of the GB adult population.
Each weekly survey typically collects around 1,800–2,200 completed responses. The sample is weighted on the following variables: age, gender, region, education level, socio-economic grade, and past vote recall (how respondents say they voted at the most recent general election). The past vote recall weight is particularly important in voting intention polling because it anchors the sample’s political composition to a known outcome.
Sample Size and Margin of Error
With a sample of approximately 2,100 respondents, the theoretical margin of error for a 50% figure is approximately ±2.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. For smaller shares — such as the SNP’s 3% — the margin of error is smaller in absolute terms but larger proportionally. This means the SNP figure could plausibly be anywhere from 2% to 4% on any given week.
For this reason, analysts typically look at rolling averages rather than individual polls when tracking smaller party movements. The YouGov tracker’s value lies in its consistency and frequency rather than in any single data point: the same question, the same methodology, delivered weekly, allows meaningful trend analysis over time.
Field Dates and Publication
YouGov’s weekly tracker typically runs fieldwork from Wednesday to Wednesday, with results published the following Thursday or Friday. The May 2026 poll cited in this article was conducted between 7 and 13 May 2026. Fieldwork is closed on the Wednesday evening and data processing, weighting, and quality checking are completed before publication.
YouGov publishes full data tables for each poll on its website, including cross-breaks by age, gender, region, social grade, and past vote. These cross-breaks are based on sub-samples that are considerably smaller than the main poll — typically 200–600 respondents per group — and should be treated with correspondingly greater caution.
Comparing YouGov to Other Pollsters
YouGov is one of five or six major pollsters regularly publishing GB voting intention in 2026, alongside Survation, Ipsos, Techne, Savanta, and Find Out Now. Each has slightly different methodology, panel composition, and weighting approaches. This produces “house effects” — systematic tendencies to record slightly higher or lower figures for specific parties.
In May 2026, YouGov’s Reform UK figure of 28% is broadly consistent with the polling average, though some pollsters record Reform at 25–26% while others record 27–29%. Labour’s 18% in the YouGov tracker is at the lower end: some pollsters show Labour at 20–22%, reflecting different approaches to likely voter filtering and past vote weighting.
How to Use the Weekly Tracker
For tracking genuine political movement, the most reliable approach is to use the polling average across multiple pollsters rather than any single survey. One-point movements in the YouGov weekly tracker are within the margin of error and should not be reported as “surges” or “collapses.” Movements of three points or more, particularly if corroborated by other pollsters in the same week, are more likely to represent genuine change. The full voting intention tracker with averages across all major polls is available on our GB voting intention page →