The 1931 Dogger Bank earthquake remains the strongest on record for the UK at magnitude 6.1, and 2025’s activity added to a year of felt quakes across Great Britain.

Residents reported vivid tremor experiences, with ground shaking and windows rattling, illustrating that even modest quakes can be broadly felt.

This year has seen widespread but generally small seismic activity across the UK, with more than 300 earthquakes recorded in 2025 by December and 1,320 public felt reports, underscoring a pattern of frequent tremors rather than major quakes.

The British Geological Survey stresses that studying earthquakes is crucial to understanding potential impacts on energy infrastructure and to help authorities mitigate seismic risks to buildings and networks.

Two of the largest onshore quakes in 2025 struck near Loch Lyon in Perth and Kinross within hours of each other on October 20, registering magnitudes 3.7 and 3.6 and were widely felt locally.

Historical context shows magnitude-4 events occur roughly every 3–4 years, magnitude-5 every few decades (the most recent in 2008 in Lincolnshire), and magnitude-6 events only every few hundred years in the UK.

BGS data reinforce that UK magnitudes cluster across these ranges: 4 approximately every 3–4 years, 5 every few decades, and 6 every few centuries, with dramatic rarities in the five-to-six range.

Although many quakes are too small to feel, the UK does experience rare magnitude-five events about every few decades and magnitude-six events roughly every few hundred years.

Seismologist explains UK earthquakes stem from fault activity and regional deformation, with the west of Scotland particularly active due to faults like the Great Glen Fault and the Highland Boundary Fault.

The UK is monitored by roughly 80 seismic stations, and Perth and Kinross featured prominently in 2025 due to local fault systems, whereas north-east Scotland recorded comparatively fewer events.

The mechanism is straightforward: small earthquakes occur when stressed rocks along faults release energy as seismic waves, producing surface shaking.