As global tensions rise, demand for personal bunkers is surging. Photo / Getty Images
Not so long ago, most of Paul Weldon’s clients wanted protection from home invaders. Now, they are asking about “dirty bombs”.
The UK-based bunker specialist has spent 16 years designing panic rooms and underground shelters, but he notes that the nature of the fears driving demand has changed dramatically in recent years.
One of his clients is investing in a sprawling underground shelter designed to withstand a month of civil unrest. Others want air filtration systems, independent power supplies and protection against potential fallout from conflicts unfolding thousands of miles away.
For Weldon, the founder of The Panic Room Company, the Covid-19 pandemic first shattered assumptions about how drastically everyday life could be disrupted. Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The conflict in the Middle East has prompted another surge of inquiries this year. Where Weldon’s company previously received four or five inquiries a month, that figure has risen to around 10. “Since the Iran war, we’ve doubled,” he says.
James Bourne, the director of Bunkers Safe, which he founded at the start of the year, said his company had also fielded a surge in interest since war broke out in Iran, noting a steady stream of three to five inquiries a day.
Weldon reports there has been high demand from Gulf-based companies in particular – five different Dubai and Kuwaiti companies in a single week – looking to establish a bolthole.
More significantly, he says, a greater proportion of those making contact are serious buyers with budgets in place.
A safe room, once designed purely to deter an intruder, is also expected to do much more, providing protection against potential nuclear, biological and chemical attacks.
Use of so-called dirty bombs – devices that lace radioactive material with conventional explosives such as dynamite – has been central to concerns since the Iran conflict flared up in February.
“If you’ve got a dirty bomb set off and you’re in the wind direction, you want to be breathing fresh air in your safe room,” says Weldon.
“If you’ve got a mixture of civil unrest and a dirty bomb, you need somewhere you can sit it out for a week or so.”
As wars rage on Europe’s borders and geopolitical tensions rise, more Britons are exploring a question that once seemed the preserve of Cold War survivalists: if the worst happens, where can you go?
Interest is also growing against a backdrop of renewed concern about civil defence across Europe.
Switzerland, long regarded as the Continent’s benchmark for preparedness, is updating parts of its extensive shelter network, comprising more than 370,000 public and private bunkers, amid heightened security concerns.
The country, which already maintains enough protected shelter space for almost its entire population, is spending some £200 million ($460m) on fixing up its network.
Finland, which has an 830-mile border with Russia, has about 50,500 civil defence structures that can shelter around 4.8 million of its 5.6 million population.
Growing interest in bunkers
Britain’s bunker network is considerably smaller. The UK has around 284 nuclear bunkers, according to Subterranea Britannica, including Royal Observer Corps (ROC) monitoring posts and radar stations.
Many have since been abandoned, demolished or converted into museums and private properties.
But the public’s fascination with them is stronger than ever.
Claire Price, a marketing executive at Auction House, points to the public’s response to a decommissioned ROC bunker put up for sale last year.
Buried in a Norfolk plot, the bunker was built during the Cold War and enabled the ROC to monitor potential air attacks.
The site eventually fetched £45,000, more than double its guide price of £20,000.
What’s remarkable, she says, is the level of interest that has persisted long after the sale closed.
The auction listing has generated around 44,000 impressions and more than 4,000 clicks since the bunker was put up for sale in 2025.
During the first quarter of this year, it attracted a further 808 clicks even though the property had changed hands months earlier.
“We rarely see such sustained interest in a property once it has been sold,” she said.
British bunker builder Subterranean Spaces has been petitioning ministers to build more shelters to defend citizens against potential drone and missile attacks.
Charles Hardman, its director, says he met Labour officials earlier this month to discuss how to put more infrastructure in place to protect British towns and cities as part of an entrepreneurship programme. Another meeting is scheduled for next week.
“The Government needs to look at policies on how to protect their people,” he said.
“There are loads of underground structures in London, for example, that can be utilised and converted into bunkers, such as unused train and tube stations. This is something that we’re putting to the Government.”
Hardman says the company has received a “steady stream” of inquiries, with demand from India, Canada, the Middle East and the UK.
But he believes the UK still needs to “wake up” to the need to improve its preparedness for war.
“If you’re in a targeted area like London and you get a detonation half a mile up in the sky from a nuclear bomb, everything within 15 miles of that detonation is gone,” he says.
A basic overground shelter starts at around £120,000, while a full underground bunker commands a minimum of £300,000, with premium installations incorporating wine cellars, gyms, offices and saunas.
Across Europe, entry-level bunkers purportedly run to between €3,000 (£2,590) and €5,000 per sq metre – comparable to buying a city-centre flat.
‘There’s been a massive change’
Prominent celebrities said to have installed panic rooms at their British homes include the Beckhams and George and Amal Clooney.
American tech billionaires have taken it a step further, with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg installing a 5,000-sq-ft underground shelter at his compound in Hawaii with its own energy and food supplies and blast-resistant doors.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman has a reinforced concrete basement under his home, while Peter Thiel, the billionaire chairman of Palantir, previously filed plans for a bunker-style compound in New Zealand.
As we are speaking, Weldon is preparing to travel to a project in Europe, the details of which he declines to share, except that the client is spending around £2m on it.
But he says that, on the whole, installing sheltered spaces is no longer necessarily a perk for the rich.
One homeowner client, whose identity was not disclosed, is spending £32,000 to reinforce his home, a “small, out-of-the-way” property worth about £250,000.
Another couple in a city outside London, “not multimillionaires, but working people”, recently had an overground shelter fitted behind their house.
“In the early days, our client base was the rich and famous, but there’s been a massive change,” he said.
“It’s coming down. People want protection, if they can afford it.”
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.