In a report published on 1 October 2026, the UK Health Security Agency said 26.6% of the eligible 2025/26 school year 13 cohort in England — 212,549 of 799,840 young people born between 1 September 2007 and 31 August 2008 — had received a first MenB dose by 20 September 2026. The figures cover the first nine weeks of the one-off young adult vaccination offer introduced in July 2026, and UKHSA said coverage was gradually increasing.

Uptake varied by group. Young women were more likely to have had a first dose than young men, at 31.5% versus 21.9%. By NHS commissioning region, coverage ranged from 21% in London to 31.6% in the South East; by deprivation, from 11.8% in the most deprived areas to 45% in the least deprived. Among ethnic groups, coverage was highest among young people of Chinese ethnicity (42.9%), followed by Asian or Asian British – Indian (36.5%), Mixed – White and Asian (34.8%) and White British (31.5%), with markedly lower coverage in all other groups.

UKHSA said two doses, at least 28 days apart, are needed for protection, and cited a roughly sevenfold higher risk of meningococcal disease among first-year university students than among similar-aged people who do not attend university. It said three outbreaks in England in 2026 — in Kent, Dorset and Berkshire — caused three deaths, and that a genomics study of the Kent outbreak highlighted how unpredictably invasive strains can emerge.