Background
The Bank’s mission is to promote the good of the people of the United Kingdom by maintaining monetary and financial stability. The Bank’s strategic investment priorities recognise that data is integral to that mission, enabling decision-making to be informed by the best available data, analysis and intelligence.
The Bank has made significant progress in the use of data and analytics (D&A). There has been a steady increase in the number of staff using the Bank’s new set of core analytical tools and, in some areas, we are pioneering the application of machine learning in central banks. We have also further improved management of our critical data, built new tools to analyse the Bank’s largest data sets and delivered new insights. One in four people at the Bank is a member of our data community. .
In October 2023 the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) took stock of the Bank of England's use of data to support its policy objectives. The IEO found that we needed to refresh our approach to build on our achievements and meet our ambition. The report set out 10 detailed recommendations, under three key themes: to agree a clear, updated vision for D&A, supported by a comprehensive strategy and governance; to break down institutional, cultural and technological barriers; and to broaden and deepen our efforts to equip staff with the necessary tools and skills to work effectively with data. These themes were subsequently echoed by the Bernanke review of forecasting for monetary policy making and communication (published April 2024).
In our response to the IEO report, we published an overview of our approach to refreshing the D&A strategy, including new governance arrangements to take it forward, and committed to publishing an implementation roadmap.
Below, we provide an update on some of the changes we have made and our progress since October 2023.
The Bank's data and analytics strategy
The overall aim of our D&A strategy is to make the best use of data to fulfil the Bank’s mission.
Our strategy will make it easy for everyone at the Bank to work with and analyse data; bridge data gaps to maximise the value of the data we collect, acquire and share; and enable safe and effective innovation, including use of artificial intelligence (AI).
This will deliver significant benefits including more effective decision-making, efficiency gains and risk reduction. We will work to ensure:
- staff have access to the data and analytical tools they need to do their jobs effectively;
- required data products to support decision-making are in place and supported to continuously improve;
- we have effective and efficient regular D&A processes, in line with agreed policies and risk tolerance;
- direct financial costs, including commercial data acquisitions and cloud costs, are managed efficiently;
- colleagues have the skills and training they need to work effectively with data;
- we have a strong data culture where innovation, data-sharing and collaboration thrive; and
- data collections and external data sharing are efficient and effective, enhancing the Bank’s reputation.
D&A strategy overview
Our Bank-wide D&A strategy is made up of a set of Bank-wide ‘missions’ and ‘foundations’. The missions describe the outcomes that we are working towards, while the foundations identify the cross-cutting support that is required to enable them.
Bank-wide missions
Make it easy for people in the Bank to work with and analyse our data
This mission aims to make it easy for our colleagues in the Bank to find, understand, access, trust, combine, and analyse the data we already have. It will support productive ways of working, enable broader efficiencies, and reduce data-related risks.
Bridge the data gaps to increase the value of the data we collect and share
The Bank collects large amounts of data and relies on data acquired from external organisations and purchased from third parties. This includes the production of statistics for the financial sector and prudential regulation and supervision. This mission will identify data gaps and work to close the most important ones. We will also review the Bank’s overall approach to bringing data into the Bank and sharing it. We will ensure that we can meet business needs and deliver value for money. We will ensure the Bank meets and exceeds its domestic and international commitments and maximises the value of its data through safe sharing internally and, in accordance with our legal obligations, externally.
Enable safe and effective innovation, including AI
Our D&A strategy will deliver AI pilots and deploy AI solutions that support operational, policy and management decisions. These pilots will look at a range of different tools and use cases. Our goal is to encourage responsible experimentation and the use of new technology. We will draw on the experience of the pilots to define a scalable AI framework to ensure that we are using AI in an ethical and transparent way. By finding and deploying the right AI solutions, we will develop new capabilities and support and improve efficiency of all aspects of the Bank’s work.
Bank-wide foundations
Cloud for data
We will design and deploy a modern Enterprise Data Platform (EDP) on the cloud for use across the Bank. The platform will give our colleagues access to our data, and a modern analytical tool set with the ability to run powerful analysis in a cost-effective way. In addition, the platform will guide colleagues to incorporate data governance and management standards in their work, and to follow our data product development model. We will continuously improve this EDP.
Business change, skills and culture
To achieve successful adoption of our D&A services and tools, we will need to effectively manage business change. We will do this by carefully planning business change and supporting colleagues as they adopt new services. We will extend learning support beyond technical training so that all colleagues have the D&A skills they need for their roles. We will create a supportive D&A culture, with colleagues solving business problems and learning together. And we will define a Bank-wide career proposition for data professionals.
Progress in implementing the D&A strategy
Good progress has been made in furthering the D&A strategy since its approval in the September 2023 Court meeting. This section provides an overview of key areas of progress, as at the end of May 2025.
The strategy’s missions
In order to support data users across the Bank, we have:
- rolled out new policies and guidance that make it easier, quicker and safer for the Bank’s staff to collect and work with data. This is already helping to ensure that our data are well managed, and easier to find, understand and access, while reducing key operational risks;
- increased the range, volume and value for money of the data we purchase, allowing more staff access to vital market data;
- assessed the data used to support financial stability and monetary policy to identify gaps;
- moved all the Bank’s statistical data to the cloud, and we are continuing to develop a new application to process it. This is being used by Bank staff to probe the quality of some statistics and is already improving the quality of some of the 35,000 statistical time series we make available on our website;
- established a new AI and Data Ethics Committee so that we can fully consider and manage the ethical implications of our use of data, particularly as we move into more complex and novel areas such as AI;
- rolled out AI assistants, including for coding, following a successful trial. In addition, we have developed a portfolio of bespoke AI applications, with a number now in the user testing phase; and
- set out our AI strategy, which describes the future direction of the application of AI internally at the Bank and elaborates on how we plan to fulfil the AI-focussed mission of our D&A strategy.
Our programme to modernise management and analysis of macrofinancial data and forecasting has reached a significant milestone with the successful completion of the design phase and the start of the implementation phase. And we have set up a programme to secure quick wins with industry to improve the design and operations of regulatory data collections.
The strategy’s foundations
Progress has also been made on the strategy’s enabling foundations. We are supporting D&A learning and have designed and launched the Bank’s Data and AI Fluency foundation course, and a new D&A Learning Hub, alongside filling more than 1,500 spaces on internally led training courses each year. We have also put in place data apprenticeship programmes all the way from school leaver to advanced level.
We have built a development cloud environment for early users to store and process data for certain use cases, and an exploratory environment to enable safe and secure use of GenAI tools on sensitive data. Work is ongoing to define the operating model to support our cloud EDP’s future use.
Looking forward to the coming year
We have prioritised our strategic goals into a Bank-wide plan. This reflects our current assessment of what is achievable given the constrained investment budget that is available.
Our priorities for the coming year are to:
Continue to develop cloud capabilities
Our focus will be on supporting early adopters of the EDP to manage and analyse their data. We will also start the migration of existing on-premise Data & Analytics Platform users and use cases to EDP. As we go, we will build EDP’s capabilities across the data lifecycle.
Increase access to modern tools, including AI
In line with our AI Strategy, we will sustain our efforts to develop AI tools for general office tasks, coding, and other business use cases. These tools are expected to generate significant time savings and support colleagues in their daily tasks.
We will embed, and adjust as needed, our policies and guidance in light of rapid technological developments. This will include a focus on supporting all staff to make the best use of the latest technology. We will continue to monitor the latest technological developments to ensure that our processes remain effective in a rapidly changing world.
Enhance support for D&A skills and culture
We will continue to support D&A learning through increasing the options for colleagues to learn about D&A tools and encouraging our colleagues to complete the Data Fluency Foundation course.
Improve the availability of data
We will focus on maximising the value of our commercial data and closing key gaps in access to administrative data. We will continue to work towards ensuring that we get the data we need at the lowest possible cost to industry. We are making strong progress on the development of our new statistical production system and its operating model, and onboarding users.
Collaborate with other organisations to improve data collection and sharing
We will continue to engage with UK and international organisations to ensure that we share data where possible. We will influence updated international statistical standards for compiling macroeconomic statistics, enabling wider improvements to macroeconomic analysis. We will work with key partners to agree priority improvements to UK financial statistics. We will identify the most important data gaps for the Bank’s own work and draw up plans to close them.
Roadmap for regulatory reporting
Work on a roadmap for our updates to regulatory reporting is being led by our Future Banking Data (FBD) project, established in spring 2025. More details about FBD’s plans on regulatory reporting are contained in the Prudential Regulation Authority Business Plan 2025/26 and the CP8/25 - Regulated fees and levies: Rate proposals for 2025/26.
Conclusion
Since our response to the IEO report, we have further clarified our ambitions and set out our next steps to achieving them. We have made good progress towards the objectives set out in our strategy. We have an ambitious change programme to continue to modernise how we collect, acquire and share data, how we work with it, and how we innovate. This will deliver new capabilities to enhance decision-making across the whole Bank and enable more productive and efficient ways of working.
We will continue to report on progress against this plan annually.