Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Financial Capability Survey is a nationally representative survey of UK residents, commissioned initially in 2005 by the Financial Services Authority and then from 2015 onwards by the Money and Pensions Service (formerly the Money Advice Service), to support the development and delivery of the Financial Capability Strategy for the UK.
The Financial Capability Survey, 2018 is the third survey in the series for which interviews were conducted with a UK nationally representative sample of 5,974 adults. The sample was boosted in each of the devolved nations (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) to ensure a robust base for analysis in each nation. The mixed mode approach aimed to balance online with offline interviewing, as informed by a number of successful surveys. For the 2018 survey, there were additional research objectives to: Update and improve the 2015 Building Blocks analysis;Validate measures derived in 2015;Improve the survey design to increase overall effective sample size enabling more effective analysis of important sub-groups such as devolved nations, young adults, older people in retirement;Improve measures of retirement planning. For comparability purposes, the basic methodology remained the same as in 2015. This includes the mix of online (via a panel) and face-to-face fieldwork techniques. However, to build on learnings from 2015, some improvements were made to the approach, all detailed in the technical report.Latest edition informationFor the second edition (August 2020), an updated version of the data file containing additional analysis variables and a new document covering the Financial Wellbeing Segmentation model were added to the study.
Main Topics:
The survey covered; financial wellbeing; financial literacy; financial numeracy; subjective well-being; life satisfaction. Information was also gathered on: self-reported behaviours of managing money well day-to-day, preparing for and managing life events and dealing with financial difficulty; saving, spending, shopping around, credit use, budgeting, keeping track, impact of life events, planning and protection/insurance; and enablers or inhibitors of financially capable behaviour: skills, knowledge, attitudes, motivations and ease/accessibility
Quota sample
Face-to-face interview
Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)
