Over a third of UK fund managers think a ‘tech black-out’ is the most underrated risk to investors, XPS polling finds

Over a third of UK fund managers think a ‘tech black-out’ is the most underrated risk to investors, XPS polling finds

26 Mar 2026

More than a third (36%) of UK fund managers believe that a tech black-out is the most underrated risk affecting investors, according to recent polling conducted by XPS Group.

The snap poll of 92 UK fund managers was carried out during a recent XPS investment manager webinar. Respondents were asked: “What do you think is the most underrated tail risk?”

While geopolitical conflict ranked as the highest risk overall (38%), more than one in three selected a tech-blackout, ahead of significant regulatory change (7.6%) and a crash of a major currency (6.5%).

The polling took place after the start of the current Middle East conflict, against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical instability and increased scrutiny of systemic risks across global markets.

A ‘tech blackout’ refers to a large-scale IT outage such as the temporary failure of an internet service provider, preventing accessing to internet services for a wide spectrum of users.  

Simeon Willis, Chief Investment Officer at XPS Group, said: “Financial professionals are conditioned to deal with conventional risks on a day-to-day basis, but the industry as a whole is vulnerable to low probability, high impact events if collectively they are dismissed as too unlikely to be worth mitigating”.

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