Another successful UK Exit Poll for Ipsos

On 4th July Ipsos conducted the official exit poll for the 2024 UK General Election on behalf of three major broadcasters: the BBC, ITV and Sky News. The results of the exit poll, published at 10pm immediately after polling stations close, reflected the election result with a high degree of accuracy yet again.

At 10pm, the exit poll headline projection confirmed that the opposition Labour party would win by a landslide. It gave the Labour party 410 seats – just two off the eventual total of 412. The Conservative party was projected to win 131, again close to their final tally of 121.

The exit poll also captured the other important dynamics at the election: it forecast 61 seats for the Liberal Democrats (who won 72) and it anticipated the expansion of representation for the Green Party (projected 2 seats, won 4) as well as Reform UK, who were predicted 13 seats and won five. Further, it projected a significant decrease in seats that would be won in Scotland by the Scottish National Party (SNP) – awarding them just nine seats, one off the eventual count of ten.

The exit poll is a huge collective undertaking for Ipsos. Teams of up to three interviewers were  required to be present at 133 polling stations across Great Britain from when they open at 7am, until they close at 10pm – 15 hours in total – not to mention work in the run-up including inspecting every site for suitability for the poll.

Ipsos drew on support from more than 550 office and field staff to meet the challenge of manning these stations, conducting 21,514 interviews on the day. The interviews are face-to-face and conducted using pen and paper: selected electors are given a mock ballot paper that asks them to mark the box of the candidate they just voted for a few second ago. We collect no other information so their response is completely anonymous and confidential.

Over the day the responses are called back to the Ipsos telephone centre based in Edinburgh, who enter the data into Ipsos’ systems. The DP and scripting team process this data which can then be shared with Sir John Curtice and the joint BBC/ITV/Sky News team so they can analyse it to create the results projection.

The Exit Poll is a unique undertaking with a highly specialised method that allows it to shape the political debate overnight as people wait for the election results to start being confirmed. Thanks to the hard work of many colleagues across Ipsos, we were able to provide high-quality data which allowed a highly accurate projection of how Britain just voted.