Published on:
28 March 2022
The Financial Wellbeing Survey 2021 is a nationally representative survey of over 10,000 adults living in the UK.
The questionnaire covers the building blocks required for people to feel financially resilient, confident, and empowered. These include:
The survey has previously been conducted in 2015 and 2018. For the 2021 survey, we have added some questions to help us assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, on financial wellbeing.
There are separate survey results for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Approximately 1000 interviews were carried out within each devolved nation, and for 2021 there has been an increase in the number of interviews in each of the government regions in England.
The survey helps The Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) identify those who are most at need of support in managing their money, and areas where financial wellbeing is lowest. We also use it to:
This report provides an overview of results based on nine key questions of financial wellbeing.
This report compares the headline findings for different demographic groups, and explores some of the changes since 2018, prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.
We have published several reports using the data from the survey and these are linked below. These are added to our research page when they are released.
So far, we have shared the following reports from the survey:
Read the 2021 survey technical report to learn more about how we collected and processed the data.
We have also shared the following press releases:
As part of Talk Money Week in November 2021:
January 2022 press release:
MaPS wants as many people as possible to use and share the findings. The data is freely available via the CDRCOpens in a new window website, following an application, and may be used with acknowledgment.