68% of Britons believe the King is doing a good job, the highest in our tracker to date

Key takeaways

  • The Prince and Princess of Wales are the most popular royals, with 74-76% of Britons having a positive opinion of them
  • Britons are twice as likely to have a positive opinion of King Charles than a negative one (62% vs 31%)
  • Although the public still tend to see Prince Harry negatively (by 58% to 33%), opinion towards the Duke of Sussex has trended upwards over the last year
  • 64% of Britons believe the UK should continue to have a monarchy
  • After nearly four years on the throne, 68% of Britons believe King Charles III is doing a good job as monarch, the highest recorded by our tracker to date, relative to just 16% feeling he is doing a bad job

As Charles III nears the completion of his fourth year on the throne, the latest figures from YouGov’s royal family trackers reveal that opinion towards the monarchy and senior royals remains stable and largely positive.

Prince William and Catherine, Princess of Wales continue to be the most positively viewed royals, with around three quarters of Britons (74-76%) seeing the Waleses in a favourable light, figures largely unchanged over the last few years. Positivity is similarly high and unmoved towards Princess Anne, with 70% of the public having a good opinion of the Princess Royal.

The King also remains largely popular, with more than six in ten Britons (62%) having a positive opinion of Charles III, double the 31% who see him unfavourably. Again, this is in line with recent waves of our tracker, with consistently 59-63% of Britons having held a favourable view of the King over the last two years.

The public also tend to be fond of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, with at least half of Britons (51-53%) having positive opinions of Prince Edward and his wife Sophie (compared to only 18% and 14% respectively holding negative views).

Queen Camilla is more divisive, with the public split between the 43% with a positive view of the Queen consort and the 44% with a negative view of her.

The public still tend to view the Sussexes in a negative light, though there has been a small upward trend in Prince Harry’s ratings over the last year. A third of Britons (33%) now see him favourably, up six points since May 2025, while the proportion with a negative view of the Duke has fallen five points over this period to 58%.

Only 22% of Britons see Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in a positive light, relative to two thirds (65%) holding an unfavourable opinion of the American princess.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew) continues to be one of the most unpopular people in the country, with our latest figures finding a mere 2% of Britons have a positive view of the former Duke of York, the lowest recorded to date, while a full 92% see him in a negative light.

What do Britons think of the monarchy, July 2026?

Attitudes towards the family and monarchy as a whole remain mostly positive, with around six in ten Britons (57-60%) seeing the royal family in general and the institution of the monarchy in favourable lights, though a persistent third (32-34%) see both negatively.

Most Britons (54%) feel the monarchy are good value for money, even if 31% feel that the country is seeing a poor return from the Sovereign Grant. Additionally, nearly half of Britons (47%) say they are outright proud of the British monarchy, relative to just 17% who feel embarrassed, with a further 33% saying they are neither proud nor embarrassed of the institution.

Overall, there’s little desire to see the monarchy come to an end, with 64% of Britons believing the UK should continue to be a Kingdom, consistent with the 61-67% who have felt so throughout Charles’s reign. Around a quarter of the public (23%), though, would rather the UK had an elected head of state instead.

Beyond the public’s view on the monarchy as a whole, roughly two thirds of Britons (68%) believe the King personally is doing a good job as monarch, up six points since April to the highest level recorded by our tracker to date. This contrasts with a mere one in six (16%) believing he is doing a bad job on the throne, down four points from the spring.

Conservative voters are the most enthusiastic backers of Charles’s reign, with 90% of those who backed the party in 2024 thinking he is doing a good job, alongside 78% of Lib Dems, 72% of Labour voters and just 57-58% of Green and Reform UK voters.

A full 35% of 2024 Reform UK voters disapprove of the King’s performance as monarch, relative to no more than 21% of voters for other parties.

See the full results here

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