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Funding: fear vs reality
For a sector built on analysing, diagnosing, and investigating everyone else’s challenges, it is ironic that the UK think tank sector is uncertain about its own. Funding remains the sector’s most prominent anxiety and the source of its most persistent illusion. Fundraising capacity was the top-cited capacity gap for 71% of think tanks (up from 66% in 2024). Yet, the report found no statistical link between this anxiety and an organisation’s actual funding source, size, or performance. This worrisome mindset means that funding anxiety is no longer a reliable distress signal, making it harder to spot who genuinely needs support. In addition, if resources are diverted to fundraising instead of more urgent departments, what starts as anxiety can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
However, concern over fundraising is far from irrational, especially in a sector so dependent on financing; funding losses caused 72% of affected think tanks to cut operating costs, and 40% to downsize staff. The concern is rational, but the ability to identify it has been eroded.
The UK sits within the highest-income bracket, where 37% of think tanks report being mostly or almost entirely core-funded, up from 27% in 2024. This provides more flexibility for think tank operations than most regions, yet it correlates only with marginally easier coverage of indirect-cost rates (30% vs 20% for project-funded orgs), which does not guarantee growth or stability. Anglosphere think tanks also predominantly rely on domestic funding, which comes with fewer bureaucracies and more stability, but it is no more effective at addressing funding anxiety than money raised abroad.
Ultimately, UK think tanks face a striking contradiction: strong funding anxiety alongside strong access to domestic and core funding. Hence, the data points to a central lesson: funding anxiety does not simply stem from not having enough money; it may also reflect broader uncertainty about whether resources translate into long-term impact.
Credibility vs impact
After delving into financing worries, an uncomfortable question arises: are think tanks prioritising resources on building influence, or simply strengthening signals of credibility to attract funding?
According to the report, those with monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) teams are roughly 2.5 times more likely to have made a direct policy contribution. Yet the report also found that MEL teams have only a 20% prevalence in structure, the lowest of any function. By contrast, 86% of think tanks have a board of directors, but neither boards nor other common divisions were found to significantly influence policy impact.
This could mean that firms with MEL teams are simply better at measuring and reporting influence. But it could also suggest firms over-invest in structures that signal ‘legitimacy’ by aligning with other think tanks, rather than investing in MEL teams, which are less visible and more niche despite their link to higher impact. This is particularly relevant for the UK, where a high density of think tanks, universities, and researchers compete for the same financial sources, incentivising mimicry of well-established competitors.
The talent pipeline problem
Organisational structures alone cannot determine influence. Think tanks’ ability to create influence ultimately depends on their people. This makes the quality of the UK’s research talent pipeline an equally important aspect to observe.
Entry-level pay sits in the lowest reported band (under USD 1,500/month) for 73% of surveyed organisations globally. Even after currency conversion, this remains well below the average UK graduate entry salary for competitive sectors like consulting, banking, or law. For a sector whose influence depends entirely on expertise, restricting entry to those willing to accept low financial compensation makes policy research less diverse and competitive.
Anglosphere leadership and senior researchers’ pay sit very close, unlike other regions. This may reflect either parity in how research and management are valued, or weak progression incentives for researchers, making retention harder.
Annual turnover is the strongest pay driver overall. Leadership pay nearly triples from the smallest organisations (9 staff or fewer) to the largest (over 50). Senior researcher pay has a similar trend, but entry-level pay stays flat regardless. Growth clearly impacts the top of the hierarchy, not the next generation of researchers.
Gender shows no significant link to pay. Global staffing is close to balanced (50% globally, 51% Anglosphere), yet fewer than 1 in 3 think tanks are led by a woman. Additionally, 74% of DEI policies apply to hiring, far more than research design (46%), which could help explain this gap. The Anglosphere also has the highest rate of think tanks with no formal DEI policy, suggesting that UK think tank progress may be more surface-level.
A sector under pressure
Additionally, having the right expertise does not guarantee influence when the environment surrounding the perception of evidence becomes increasingly contested. Anglosphere think tanks reporting significant impacts from political polarisation grew from 22% in 2024 to 41% in 2025. Likewise, 61% of firms globally identified more difficulty in presenting data, as more audiences view briefs through a partisan lens, eroding trust. Polarisation also led 58% of firms to report difficulty conducting cross-party research, reducing quality, credibility, and neutrality. The challenge is not just simply producing good research, but ensuring audiences are willing to engage with it.
Yet the deeper issue may not be polarisation itself, but a lack of trust in evidence. Across political systems, evidence shows that think tanks operating in areas where research is highly trusted were significantly less likely to report negative effects from polarisation. This is especially relevant to the UK, where growing political extremism and populist discourse make spreading research increasingly taxing.
This does not mean that the UK think tanks are disconnected from public concerns. The Anglosphere is one of the few regions the report classifies as aligning with the public. The region ranks economics as its top priority, matching the public concern over inflation and the cost of living. But the second and third priorities, social policy and environment & climate, are not mentioned by the public at all. The data also flagged the EU’s climate-led agenda as possibly influenced by elite funders rather than public concern. If this applies strongly to the UK, alignment with public sentiment may only be shallow.
Concluding thoughts
Across funding, organisational structures, talent, and political pressure, the same pattern appears: institutions are better at presenting credibility than measuring effectiveness. The sector’s future depends less on producing more signals and more on the willingness to test them, especially as competition, political fragmentation, and declining trust in institutions make influence harder to achieve.
In short, the sector’s biggest blind spot may not be a lack of confidence, but confidence that has stopped being questioned and tested.