From Pressure to Progress: A Positive Shift in Financial Wellbeing?
In a fast-moving economy, waiting months for official data can mean reacting too late. That’s where the Economic Nowcast comes in. By using near-real-time financial data, it offers an early view of how account holders are really coping. It helps spot shifts in financial wellbeing as they happen, making it a powerful tool for understanding pressure points, recovery trends, and emerging precarity.
This month’s Economic Nowcast brings some cautiously positive news.
The national picture
The proportion of people in Great Britain living beyond their means has fallen again, dropping 1% month-on-month to 9.9%. That figure is now 0.8% lower than six months ago (June), continuing a gradual but encouraging downward trend.
Our Living Beyond Means metric captures the share of accounts where expenditure exceeds income by 20% or more. Income includes wages, benefits and pensions, allowing us to track changes in financial health on a month-to-month basis. The steady decline over the past six months suggests that, for many account holders, financial pressures are beginning to ease.
This improvement is echoed in income data. Average weekly income has risen 3.01% month-on-month to £350.97 per week. After declining during the first half of 2025, incomes have climbed consistently through the second half of the year. In June, the average stood at £306.35, meaning incomes have increased by 14.6% over the past six months.
That said, some caution is warranted. Seasonal effects may be playing a role, with workers taking on additional hours in the run-up to Christmas or drawing down savings to support festive spending.
Regional insights
The downward trend in living beyond means is visible across all three nations:
- England recorded the sharpest monthly fall at -1.1%
- Scotland saw the smallest decrease at -0.90%
- Wales experienced a 0.9% reduction in people spending 120% or more of their income
While these percentage changes may appear modest, their real-world impact is significant. In England alone, they represent almost 4,000 fewer people in our sample struggling to make ends meet in December.
Income growth was also shared across all three nations. On average, account holders saw £552.19 added to annual incomes, equivalent to £42.01 per week.
- Scotland recorded the largest increase at 3.07%
- England followed closely at 3.05%
- Wales saw a 2.93% rise
These differences suggest income gains are not evenly distributed, with economic conditions in England, Scotland and Wales potentially influencing factors such as access to additional working hours or lower available savings to support festive spending may be influencing how regions experience these improvements.
Explore the data further
To dive deeper into these trends, visit our Economic Nowcast regional breakdown.
If you’d like to track how living beyond means has evolved over time - at both national and regional levels - you can also sign up for free access to our Economic Wellbeing Explorer.
Together, these tools provide a clearer, more timely picture of how financial wellbeing is changing across the UK.
