Nominet are planning to make their zone file available from May.
In an email to Nominet members yesterday Nominet CEO Russell Haworth stated:
We have also taken a decision to make the .UK zone file available free to our members in May. The team are working out the finer technical and operational points and will keep you posted as we firm things up.
There aren’t any details on how Nominet members will gain access to the zone file, how often it will be updated and if there are any restrictions tied to access. I suspect this announcement will attract quite a bit of interest from people who use zone file data for analysing domain name trends and other things.
More on this when we get it.