The 2026 UK Digital Asset Gap Report

The scale of estate administration in the UK

568,613 deaths were registered in England and Wales in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics. This represents approximately 1,557 estates entering administration every single day. Each estate requires notification of financial institutions, closure of accounts, cancellation of subscriptions, and transfer of assets to beneficiaries.

Source: Office for National Statistics, Deaths registered in England and Wales: 2024, published October 2025.

Of those estates, only 41% of UK adults had made a will, according to the UK Wills and Probate Consumer Research Report 2025 by IRN Legal Reports, based on a survey of 950 adults. This means that for the majority of the 568,613 estates registered in 2024, the deceased left no documented instructions for how their assets should be distributed or located.

Source: IRN Legal Reports, UK Wills and Probate Consumer Research Report 2025, April 2025.

Among adults without a will, 54% say they simply have not got round to it. A further 21% cite the cost of instructing a solicitor, and 16% say they find the process too complicated. The gap is not primarily one of intent - it is one of friction and access.

Source: IRN Legal Reports / Will Aid survey of 2,006 UK adults.

The digital asset blind spot

8% of UK adults currently own cryptocurrency, according to the Financial Conduct Authority's Cryptoassets Consumer Research 2025, conducted by YouGov with 2,353 respondents. This represents approximately 4.5 million people holding digital assets that do not appear in any traditional estate inventory - no paper trail, no account statements, no visible record.

Source: Financial Conduct Authority, Cryptoassets Consumer Research 2025, published December 2025.

The mean value of cryptocurrency holdings per UK holder rose to approximately £1,842 in 2025, as smaller holders exited the market and larger investors remained. This means the average crypto-holding estate now contains nearly £2,000 in assets that executors may never find without explicit instructions from the deceased.

Source: Financial Conduct Authority, Cryptoassets Consumer Research 2025, December 2025.

In 2025, the UK enacted the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act, legally recognising digital assets - including cryptocurrency, digital files, and certain online accounts - as personal property under English and Welsh law. Digital assets are now inheritable, transferable, and subject to estate law. Yet the infrastructure for actually locating and transferring these assets at death remains almost entirely absent for most families.

Source: Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025; Digital Assets (Scotland) Act 2026.

The probate delay problem

45% of people who have been through the probate process say it took longer than expected, up from 40% in 2024, according to the UK Wills and Probate Consumer Research Report 2025. Delays are most commonly caused by difficulty identifying all assets, notifying financial institutions, and waiting for institution responses - a process that currently relies almost entirely on paper letters, phone calls, and individual solicitor chasing.

Source: IRN Legal Reports, UK Wills and Probate Consumer Research Report 2025, April 2025.

59% of executors now use the Ministry of Justice online probate portal, reflecting growing digitisation of the probate process. Yet the notification of individual financial institutions - the most time-consuming part of estate closure - remains largely manual for most estates.

Source: IRN Legal Reports, UK Wills and Probate Consumer Research Report 2025, April 2025.

What the gap looks like in practice

Consider a typical UK estate in 2026. The deceased held a current account, two savings accounts, an ISA, a workplace pension, a cryptocurrency wallet containing Bitcoin, seven active subscriptions including Netflix and Spotify, car insurance, home insurance, and a PayPal account with a balance. They had a will, written six years ago, that mentioned their property and savings but nothing digital.

Their executor - typically a family member acting without professional training - must now identify every account the deceased held with no central record to refer to, contact each financial institution individually to notify them of the death, provide certified copies of the death certificate to each institution, wait for each to respond and chase those that do not, cancel subscriptions to stop ongoing charges to the estate, locate and transfer or close the cryptocurrency wallet, and do all of this while grieving.

The average estate in the UK involves contact with between 10 and 20 financial institutions and service providers. Without a centralised record of accounts and a structured notification process, executors report spending months on administration that could be completed in days with the right tools.

The SafeKept response

SafeKept was built to close this gap. It is a UK estate management platform covering the full lifecycle from life planning through bereavement administration.

For individuals, SafeKept provides an encrypted vault to store every financial account, document, crypto wallet, password, and subscription in one place - accessible to their executor after death. For executors, SafeKept provides a structured dashboard to systematically notify financial institutions, track responses, and close the estate. For professional partners - solicitors, accountancy firms, and funeral homes - SafeKept provides dedicated portals to manage client estates at scale. For banks and financial institutions, SafeKept provides a structured digital notification channel that replaces the paper letter and phone call.

The data above quantifies why this matters. 568,613 estates. 4.5 million crypto holders with no estate record. 59% of executors navigating a largely manual process. The infrastructure exists. The gap is access.