July 23, 2026
PM Andy Burnham Puts Cost of Living Back on the UK Agenda. It Belongs on the Workplace Agenda Too
The cost of living is back at the top of the national agenda. I’d argue workplace financial wellbeing support belongs at the top of the workplace agenda alongside it, because the scale of the problem is no longer in question.
Household costs dominated the new Prime Minister’s first speech outside Number 10. The following day, Andy Burnham told his cabinet that Britain now had a “cost of living government” – one whose job was to convince households that help was coming. Two announcements followed in as many days: the 5% VAT charge on household electricity bills scrapped, and a £2 cap on single bus fares in England outside London.
The measures themselves are modest, but what they signal is priority. A government has decided this is the issue it wants to be judged on.
Whatever your politics, I think that matters. Not because government alone can solve the financial pressures millions of people face, but because it confirms what the data already tells us: money remains one of the biggest worries in people’s lives.
Research published by Zellis in 2025 found that 92% of UK and Irish employees had experienced financial stress or worry in the past year. Nearly as many, 89%, said that stress had gone on to affect them at work.
That is not something employers can afford to ignore.
Why Doesn’t Anyone Teach Us How Money Works?
At FinWELL, we work with organisations of all sizes, from apprentices taking home their first payslip to senior leaders planning for retirement. Their circumstances differ enormously, but one thing connects almost everyone we meet: very few have ever been taught how money actually works.
We expect adults to understand tax, pensions, credit scores, budgeting, mortgages, savings, and investing, usually with little or no financial education along the way. Given that, it is no surprise so many people feel overwhelmed.
The First Payslip Problem
The challenge is greater still for people entering work for the first time. Every year, thousands of apprentices, graduates, and new recruits receive their first regular salary. It is an exciting milestone, and it also brings decisions they have never had to make before.
How much should I save? Should I join the pension scheme? What does my tax code mean? How do I build a good credit score? Why is my payslip smaller than I expected? What happens if something goes wrong financially?
These questions are entirely normal, yet too many young people feel they have to work out the answers alone. Financial confidence does not arrive with your first payday; it comes through education, support, and experience. That is precisely why employers have a part to play – not as financial advisers, and not as the people responsible for fixing a national crisis, but because they are uniquely placed to help people build skills and resilience they will draw on for the rest of their working lives.
Why Workplace Financial Wellbeing Support Is Not the Same as a Pay Rise
One of the biggest misconceptions I still encounter is that supporting financial wellbeing means increasing salaries. Fair pay matters, of course. But workplace financial wellbeing support is about far more than how much someone earns; it is about helping people make informed decisions with the money they already have.
Sometimes that means explaining how a workplace pension works, or making better use of benefits an employee already has but does not understand. Sometimes it is building an emergency fund, avoiding unnecessary debt, or simply having the confidence to ask for help before a small problem becomes a serious one.
The most useful support rarely requires a large budget. It starts with a culture where talking about money is not embarrassing, where managers feel able to ask how someone is doing without feeling intrusive, and where financial education sits alongside mental health, physical wellbeing, and career development rather than trailing behind them.
Money Problems Rarely Stay Money Problems
Financial strain shows up in sleep, relationships, confidence, mental health, performance, and attendance. Sometimes it shows up in whether someone chooses to stay with an organisation at all.
Over the past few years we have made real progress in breaking down the stigma around mental health at work, and it is time to do the same with money. That shift has already started. More organisations are investing in financial education, reviewing their benefits, training managers to spot the signs of financial stress, and creating space for conversations that were not happening a few years ago.
There is still a long way to go, and the biggest opportunity I see is to reach people earlier.
Where Employers Should Focus Next
Consider what would change if every apprentice, graduate, and new starter received practical money skills alongside their induction. If understanding a payslip was treated as seriously as understanding company values. If every employee knew where to turn for trusted, independent guidance long before reaching crisis point.
The effect would not be purely financial. It would show up in confidence, wellbeing, productivity, and resilience across an entire career.
Governments will keep shaping the economy, and this one has made clear where its attention sits. Employers hold something different but equally powerful: the ability to shape everyday financial lives, helping people worry less about money, feel more confident about their future, and build habits that last.
That is what financial wellbeing has always meant to me. Not selling products or dispensing advice, but giving people the knowledge, confidence, and support to make better decisions and reduce the money-related stress that so many of us carry.
So if the cost of living is once again at the heart of the UK’s conversation, this is a reasonable moment for employers to ask themselves one question: what more could we be doing to improve the financial wellbeing of our people?
When employees are financially healthier, the whole organisation feels it. And if we can help the next generation start their working lives with confidence rather than confusion, we are not only supporting today’s workforce – we are investing in tomorrow’s.
Ryan Briggs is the founder of FinWELL Training, an award-winning Money Skills & Financial Education provider working with employers of all sizes and sectors globally from apprentices and early careers to those planning for retirement.
