Prepping for beginners: a grounded UK guide to getting ready

What prepping is, and what it is not

Search interest in prepping in the UK has climbed sharply over the past two years, and it is easy to see why. Storms that strip roofs and bring down lines for days. Floods that cut villages off. A pandemic that emptied supermarket shelves in a week. A war in Europe, cyber attacks on hospitals and retailers, and a government campaign that now openly asks every household to be ready.

Strip away the bunkers and the doomsday videos and prepping is simple: having what you need, and knowing what to do, so your household can manage on its own for a while when normal life stops working. That is what the UK Government’s Be Ready campaign asks for. It says that being ready for three days “helps you manage while support reaches those most in need”.

It is not about hoarding, weapons, distrust of your neighbours or waiting for the end. In every real British emergency, from the 2015 York floods to Storm Arwen in 2021, the people who coped best were the ones with a plan, a torch, some water and neighbours they knew by name.

The risks worth planning for

The government publishes its own list of the things most likely to disrupt life in the UK: the National Risk Register 2025. It assesses 89 risks across nine themes, from flooding and severe weather to cyber attacks, pandemics, failures of the electricity network, and conflict. You do not need to read it all. Most of those risks end in the same handful of problems at your front door:

Plan for those seven problems and you have covered almost everything, whatever the cause. That is the quiet secret of prepping: you do not need a separate plan for every disaster.

Your first week: five things to do

1. Write your household plan. Who you would call, where you would meet if you could not get home, where the stop tap, fuse box and gas meter are, and who in your street might need a knock on the door. Our household plan takes about twenty minutes and is saved only on your device. Print it.
2. Find what you already have. Torches in drawers, tins at the back of the cupboard, the camping kit in the loft. Put the emergency bits in one box, in one place everyone knows.
3. Put water aside. Three litres per person per day for drinking, for three days. For two adults that is 18 litres: three large packs of bottled water. Our water calculator does the sums for your household.
4. Charge a power bank and keep it charged. Your phone is your torch, radio, map and lifeline. When the power goes, the phone dies next. See power banks.
5. Check whether you can join the Priority Services Register. It is free, and if you or someone you live with is older, disabled, has a long-term illness or relies on powered medical equipment, it gets you extra help in a power cut or water outage.

The first month: build to three days

Once the plan exists, build up the kit. Do it a few items at a time on ordinary shopping trips. It spreads the cost and it never contributes to empty shelves for anyone else.

• Light. A torch for every adult, a head torch if you can, and spare batteries. Be Ready is clear: “Torches are safer than candles.”
• Information. A battery or wind-up FM radio. When phones and broadband go down, BBC local radio keeps broadcasting.
• Food. Three days of food that needs no fridge and no cooking: tins, crackers, peanut butter, cereal bars, dried fruit. A manual tin opener. See building a food store.
• Warmth. Blankets, sleeping bags, hats and warm layers. Heating usually needs electricity, even gas boilers.
• Health. A first aid kit, and enough of your regular medicines to cover a few days of disruption. Ask your pharmacist or GP about anything specific. See first aid when help is delayed.
• Money and papers. Some cash in coins and small notes, and copies of key documents in a waterproof wallet.

Our what to buy guide puts all of this in priority order with budget tiers, and the printable checklist lets you tick it off.

After that: a week, then longer

Three days is the official baseline, not the ceiling. Long power cuts after big storms have lasted more than a week in parts of rural Britain, and serious supply disruption can run for weeks. Once your three days is done:

• Stretch water and food to seven days, then fourteen, by buying an extra tin or bottle each shop and eating the oldest first.
• Add a way to heat food safely. A camping stove is useful, but only ever outdoors. See the carbon monoxide warning on our food store guide.
• Add backup power for phones, lights and a router. A small power station is optional, not essential: see our researched picks.
• Read the long-haul guides for disruption lasting days or weeks.
• Know the risks where you live: flood maps, coastal erosion and radon. See safer places in the UK.

The mindset that actually helps

Real emergencies are mostly boring, cold, dark and confusing. Very few look like the films. What gets people through them is not equipment so much as habits:

• Get official information. Sign up for flood warnings, know how Emergency Alerts work, and follow Met Office warnings. Rumours spread faster than facts in a crisis.
• Know your neighbours. The person next door is closer than any emergency service. Swap numbers. Check on anyone older or alone.
• Rotate, don’t hoard. A store you eat from and replace is always in date. A stash in the loft goes off.
• Stay calm and stay put unless you are told to leave. Most emergencies are safer at home.