Businesses and users who use Microsoft are facing major outages in the UK and around the world, with laptops and systems not working.

Sky News was one of the companies that were affected, being unable to broadcast its morning show at 6am, with viewers being left with a static message apologising for the 'disruption' to the service.

The outage has impacted banks, IT firms and airlines all through this morning (Friday, July 19).

Train operator TransPennine Express (TPE) warned passengers it has been affected by the IT outage.

It said: “Please be aware that some TPE stations and systems are having IT issues.

“Please purchase tickets on board if you are unable to do so in stations.”

Northern added: "We are currently experiencing widespread IT issues across our entire network, which is linked with the issues affecting many industries and businesses this morning.

"Trains are still running however information systems may not be showing and we’re unable to provide disruption info in the same ways as usual.

"We’ll continue to add disruption to our X feed when known."

A post on the Bradford Council Facebook page read: "Unfortunately, some of our facilities (including sports centres and pools) are unable to take card payments at the moment.

"Please bring cash if you are planning to use any of our facilities today."

"We’ll provide an update on our social media channels once the situation is resolved."

Bradford City posted on X: "IMPORTANT. Our ticketing provider is currently being affected by a global IT outage, meaning our official ticketing website is down and all sales are suspended.

"We thank you for your patience and apologise for the inconvenience while we attempt to resolve this issue."

Meanwhile, Ryanair said its flights are being disrupted by the outage.

The airline said in a statement: “We’re currently experiencing disruption across the network due to a global third party IT outage which is out of our control.

“We advise all passengers to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their scheduled departure time.”

The Church Lane Surgery in Brighouse, posted on X that “our clinical system has not been working since 7am this morning”.

“We have no access to patient clinical records so are unable to book appointments or provide information… This is a national problem and is being worked on as a high priority."

Why is the Microsoft outage happening?

Tech journalist Chris Stokel-Walker suggested the major Microsoft outage was due to an update from the computer threat checker Crowdstrike Falcon.

He posted on X (formerly known as Twitter): "Good morning. Stay in bed today. Early reports suggest Crowdstrike Falcon - a computer threat checker used by lots (and lots and lots) of businesses pushed out an update that might have broken a lot of computers. Airlines, businesses etc affected".

On X, Microsoft 365 status acknowledged the issue that was affecting many users around the world.

Posting early on Friday morning, it said: "We're investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services."

In a thread of updates, they shared they were working to reroute the impacted traffic.

Their most recent post said: "Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions."

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People around the world have reacted to their work systems being affected, with one person posting: "How will Microsoft fix this xd when they themselves are using Microsoft for their entire work."

Another shared: "Microsoft Blue Screen Error happening Globally? Got this screen for the 5th time back to back."

Meanwhile, another joked: "Early weekend, Thanks Microsoft."