Financial education for children and young people

In 2020, we published the UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing. This set a national goal for two million more children and young people to receive a meaningful financial education by 2030.

We now support progress towards this goal in partnership with government, financial services, charities and other partners. This includes:

• building and sharing evidence to shape financial education provision, including funding programmes to test new approaches and interventions
• helping to develop and promote financial education tools and services
• running and contributing to networks that support sharing of best practice
• promoting financial education as part of our national campaigning for Talk Money Week.

Research shows that the skills, attitudes and behaviours we have around money begin to develop from an early age. These skills grow throughout our childhood and teenage years, so financial education from a young age can make a huge difference to our financial wellbeing in adulthood.

In the last few years, we’ve learned that:

• children and young people who receive a meaningful financial education are more likely to be active savers, have a bank account they use, and be more confident managing money
• only half of the UK’s children and young people are receiving a meaningful financial education, either at home or in school
• many young people are entering adulthood without the knowledge and skills needed to manage their money, and are therefore at risk of poor financial outcomes.

You can view more insights demonstrating the impact of financial education in our research pages.

We focus on financial education delivered in three key environments.

Parents and carers play a vital role in children’s financial education. However, only 56% of them feel confident talking to their children about money.

Through our consumer-facing website MoneyHelper, we offer guidance for parents and carers on how to talk to children about money, whatever their age. This guidance includes tips, ideas and ways to get children involved in day-to-day money management.

• How to talk to your child about money
• How to talk to your teenager about money

Though many education leaders and teachers recognise the importance of financial education, only a third of children and young people can recall useful learning about money.

Teachers and educators can use our guidance for schools. It has information about embedding financial education and developing the financial capability of children and young people. The guidance:

• describes how financial education links to the curriculum
• sets out how schools can improve the financial education they deliver
• signposts to services and resources that can help.

You can learn more about how we work with others to help schools enhance their financial education provision.

We know that some children and young people are more likely to miss out on financial education or have lower levels of financial capability and wellbeing.

Therefore, it’s important that those working with vulnerable young people in the community have the confidence, knowledge and skills to build learning about money into the support they provide.

Service leaders and practitioners working in the community can:

• view our guides for children and young people’s services which offer information about good practice in delivering financial education. There are four guides available – one for each of the UK nations.
• download the toolkit for practitioners, which includes resources and services that can support you when talking to young people about money and delivering informal financial guidance
• get involved in our Money Guiders programme, which allows people working with members of the public to enhance their skills when it comes to financial guidance.

Our leading programme of research aims to build our knowledge of:

• children’s financial wellbeing across the UK
• the availability of financial education in the UK, and
• what works in building financial capability for future generations.

We run a unique children and young people financial wellbeing survey. This is a comprehensive analysis of the financial capability of children and young people, as well as their experiences of financial education at home, at school and in the community.

Our evaluation programmes have supported organisations to develop and expand their financial education offer, while generating new evidence about what works.

You can read more about our research.

If you have further questions, or would like to understand more about providing financial education in your own work, you can contact us by email at [email protected]