Microsoft has fully restored services following a major global IT outage.
The disruption affected police forces, the NHS, businesses, courts, and schools.
The US-based company confirmed this morning (November 14) that services were fully restored for all remaining affected customers.
In a statement on its Microsoft 365 status page, the company said: "We have completed our efforts to address the underlying issue of the incident and restored service to the remaining impacted customers and regions.
We are deeply sorry for the disruption this incident has caused our customers and partners. We know the trust they place in our services and take that responsibility extremely seriously. We are seeing broad recovery and stability across our services. This was a technical issue not related to cyber or AI / agents. The incident was introduced by an issue during an earlier network capacity upgrade that surfaced following a recent network change. We have addressed the underlying issue and continue to restore service to remaining customers and regions. Given the scale of demand, we restored services gradually, validating stability at each stage. While this took longer, it helped ensure a stable restoration. We will provide a full post-incident report once our review is complete.
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) November 13, 2026
"Further updates can be found at MO1550821 in the Microsoft 365 admin center."
The outage, which began around 6pm GMT on Thursday, November 12, disrupted email, messaging, and other Microsoft 365 services.
The UK Government and others worldwide were forced to activate contingency plans.
Microsoft said on Friday the disruption was due to a "technical issue not related to cyber or AI agents."
Baroness Lloyd of Effra, the UK Government’s cyber minister, said the problem mainly affected back-office functions.
Baroness Lloyd said there had been "limited reports of impact on frontline service delivery" and the incident had been "inconvenient and disruptive".
She confirmed she had spoken with Microsoft UK chief executive Darren Hardman about the outage.
Monitoring website Downdetector first showed a spike in users reporting problems with Microsoft Teams in the UK at about 6.15pm on Thursday.
It recorded a surge in complaints, with more than 130,000 users in the US reporting problems with Outlook at its peak on Thursday evening.
Millions of its customers were unable to send and receive emails through Outlook, while Microsoft’s Copilot AI assistant, Teams and other Microsoft 365 services were also affected for many.
Other AI chat platforms, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, were disrupted.
How was the UK affected by the Microsoft outage this week?
Police forces in England and Wales said on Friday that they could not receive crime reports online.
NHS England said staff had switched to "long-standing measures" to manage the outage, including the use of paper records.
Rail passengers were unable to access e-tickets for their journeys as they couldn't open the emails in their Outlook inboxes.
National Rail warned travellers to use alternative methods to access their tickets.
A spokesman said: "We’re aware of the ongoing Microsoft global outage, which may be affecting customers’ ability to access their train tickets via their email inbox.
"If you’re unable to locate or access your tickets through your email due to this issue, you may still be able to access your tickets by visiting the website or app where you purchased your tickets from and logging into your account.
‼️We’re aware of the ongoing Microsoft global outage, which may be affecting customers’ ability to access their train tickets via their email inbox. 🔗Latest Information and advice can be found here: https://t.co/pYa714hR8k
— National Rail (@nationalrailenq) November 13, 2026
"We recommend doing this before you travel to ensure you have your tickets readily available for your journey.
"This may not be possible if you checked out as a guest – please contact your ticket retailer directly if you are unable to access your tickets.
"If you are still unable to access your ticket, please contact a member of onboard staff or station staff for advice."
Other rail operators, including Southeastern, Chiltern Railways and London North Eastern Railway (LNER), reported similar problems with emailed tickets.
Did the global Microsoft 365 outage affect you this week? Let us know in the comments below.
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