Company lists · Data refreshed September 2026
Top 25 Think tanks based in the United Kingdom
RevenueBase identified 102 think tanks headquartered in the United Kingdom as of September 2026 and tracks 2,978 professional contacts across them, including 658 with verified work emails. London is the largest hub.
This list covers think tanks headquartered in the United Kingdom, matched on what each company actually does as described in its own words. Ranked by team size, largest first. Every row shows the company's own description, its RevenueBase Smart Search rating, and when it was last checked. Data refreshed September 22, 2026.
Published by RevenueBase, a B2B data infrastructure company. This list was built with RevenueBase Smart Search, the natural-language company search RevenueBase customers use to build their own targeted lists and unlock verified emails and direct dials at the companies on them. How these lists are built and judged.
The 25 largest think tanks based in the United Kingdom
Ranked by team size| # | Company | Contacts | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 867 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “The mission of Chatham House is to be a world-leading source of independent analysis, informed debate and influential ideas on how to build a prosperous and secure world for all.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 2 | 313 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is a unique institution, founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington, RUSI embodies nearly two centuries of forward thinking, free…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 3 | 222 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “RAND Europe is a not-for-profit research institute whose mission is to help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 4 | 165 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “CEPR is an independent, non‐partisan, pan‐European non‐profit organization.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 5 | 93 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Wilton Park is a discreet think-space designed for experts and policy-makers to engage in genuine dialogue with a network of diverse voices, in order to address the most pressing…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 6 | 87 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “The Institute for Government is the leading think tank working to make government more effective.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 7 | 66 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Public First is a public policy research agency.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 8 | 52 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “POST is a source of independent, balanced, and accessible analyses of public policy issues.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 9 | 35 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Policy Exchange is the UK’s leading think tank.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 10 | 33 contacts → | ||||
Strong evidence “The Adam Smith Institute is one of the world's leading think tanks, recognised as the best domestic and international economic policy think-tank in the UK and ranked 1st in the…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 11 | 26 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “The Social Market Foundation (SMF) is Britain’s leading cross-party think tank.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 12 | 24 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “We are a progressive think tank focused on reforming the state to renew the nation.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 13 | 21 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Cityforum has been contributing to public policy since 1990.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 14 | 18 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “The Centre for European Reform is a think-tank devoted to improving the quality of the debate on the European Union.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 15 | 18 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “The Institute aims to be a pre-eminent think tank with the goals of making governance and policy-making more inclusive and open to a broad coalition of stakeholders.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 16 | 18 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “We are London’s think tank.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 17 | 18 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Who we are: Agora is the UK’s open forum for foreign policy.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 18 | 17 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “The Centre for Policy Studies believes in freedom and responsibility.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 19 | 17 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Bright Blue is an independent think tank and pressure group for liberal conservatism.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 20 | 15 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “EARTH 51 is a think-tank architecting the future of the global knowledge economy.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 21 | 13 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 22 | 8 contacts → | ||||
Indirect evidence “Open Access Government provides an in-depth perspective on key public policy areas from all around the world, including health and social care, COVID-19, research and innovation…” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 23 | 6 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “Defence and Security Forum is a leading think tank bringing together experts to confront the most challenging global defence and security issues of our day.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 24 | 4 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “The CHACR is the British Army's think tank set up to enhance the conceptual component of fighting power.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
| 25 | 3 contacts → | ||||
Partial evidence “We are a think tank rooted in the values of freedom and the Conservative Party.” Source: RevenueBase Database · checked Sep 22, 2026Thanks. The Data Team will review it. | |||||
RevenueBase Smart Search
RevenueBase Smart Search assesses information from a company’s LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website, and other publicly available sources. It uses that information to rate how closely the company relates to this list’s category: think tanks. Every row carries its rating and the description the rating was read from, so each one can be checked rather than taken on trust.
- Strong evidence
- The company's own public description of its business names think tanks.
- Partial evidence
- Its own public description names part of think tanks, so it works in or next to the category without describing itself that way.
- Indirect evidence
- The description shown does not name think tanks. The match rests on the rest of the company's public profile rather than the one sentence quoted here, so this is the rating to check first.
RevenueBase Smart Search is how these lists are built: RevenueBase's data engine and AI assemble the companies that match a category defined in a user's own words, so a list can be about what companies actually do rather than about whichever industry code they were filed under.
Showing 25 of 102 think tanks based in the United Kingdom
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Think tanks based in the United Kingdom at a glance
As of Sep 22, 2026Companies by employee count
Email recency for this list is measured worldwide rather than for United Kingdom, so it is reported there. Company counts and contact totals on this page are exact for United Kingdom, over 102 companies.
How this list was built
Company categories are rarely black and white. RevenueBase reads each company's own description of its business to decide whether it belongs among think tanks, so some rows will be adjacent to the category rather than pure plays. The description and RevenueBase Smart Search rating on every row are there so you can check each match yourself.
- Source
- The RevenueBase company graph: 60 million companies and 398.9 million professional contacts resolved from primary sources, queried with RevenueBase Smart Search, the natural-language company search available to every RevenueBase user.
- What qualifies
- Companies headquartered in the United Kingdom whose own description of what they do matches “think tanks”. Matching reads each company's description, not its industry code or its name.
- RevenueBase Smart Search
- RevenueBase Smart Search is how this list is assembled and how each row is rated. RevenueBase's data engine and AI assess a company's LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website and other publicly available information, then relate it to a category defined in a user's own words. Each row is rated strong evidence (its own description names think tanks), partial evidence (it names part of the category) or indirect evidence (the description shown names none of it and the match rests on the rest of the company's profile). The description supporting each rating is quoted on the row.
- What we exclude
- Companies whose own description does not clearly place them among think tanks, and records with no verified work email. Companies headquartered outside United Kingdom are excluded even when they keep an office there.
- Match quality
- In blind human judging of this matching method, 86% of matched companies were on target. Expect roughly 1 in 7 rows to be adjacent to the category rather than a pure play. Every row shows the company's own description and its RevenueBase Smart Search rating so you can judge each match yourself. Read the full methodology: how the lists are built, how the judging worked, and what the figure means.
- Ranking
- Team size, largest first: companies are ordered by the number of professionals RevenueBase tracks at each one. Employee ranges shown are reported bands, for context.
- Verification
- Every listed company carries at least one verified work email, 658 across the full list. Contacts re-verify on a rolling cadence, and each contact's own verification date is shown inside RevenueBase.
- Refresh
- This page's figures were pulled from the company graph on September 22, 2026. Lists refresh periodically as the graph is re-checked.
- Corrections
- Wrong category, wrong headquarters, or a company that has closed? Use “Report an issue” on any row. Reports go to the RevenueBase Data Team and feed back into the company graph.
Think tanks by metro
- Think tanks in London61
Frequently asked
What is RevenueBase Smart Search?
RevenueBase Smart Search is how RevenueBase decides which companies belong on this list and how strongly each one fits. Its data engine and AI assess a company's LinkedIn profile, information supplied directly by the company, its website and other publicly available information, then relate it to the category the list is about. Each row is rated strong evidence when the company's own description names think tanks, partial evidence when it names part of the category, and indirect evidence when the description shown names none of it and the match rests on the rest of the company's profile.
How many think tanks are there based in the United Kingdom?
RevenueBase identified 102 think tanks headquartered in the United Kingdom as of September 2026, matched on each company's own description of what it does rather than its industry code.
What is the largest company on this list?
Chatham House, headquartered in London, tops this list with the largest team on record.
Which city has the most think tanks?
London leads with 61 headquartered companies, followed by Manchester (4) and Cambridge (3).
How do I get contact information for these companies?
A free RevenueBase account lets you run this exact search and work the top results, verified emails and direct dials included. Upgrading unlocks all 658 verified decision-maker contacts tracked across these 102 companies.
How current is this list?
The list refreshes periodically as the company graph is re-checked. This page's figures were pulled on September 22, 2026.
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About this data
RevenueBase is a B2B data infrastructure company. Its company graph covers 60 million companies and 398.9 million professional contacts, with emails verified on a rolling cadence rather than scraped once and left to decay. These company lists are generated directly from that graph with RevenueBase Smart Search, the same natural-language company search every RevenueBase user has: describe a market in plain words, get the companies that match, and add verified emails and direct dials for the people at them. It is the same data that powers RevenueBase's B2B data products, and a free account includes 500 credits to start. How these lists are built and judged.