July 2025
Featured in this insight: Financial services
Almost half of Gen Z are saving – but trusted advice on how to manage that money is missing, new research reveals: 42% of Gen Z are actively saving and feel financially secure. However, financial support for young people is lacking, with only 13% of Gen Z saying they would turn to their school or college for advice on how to manage their money.
HSBC UK and Young Enterprise released data obtained by Sapio Research on young people’s experience with managing money. Between 7–21 May 2025, 2800 UK adults aged 16+, including a sub sample of 1000 16–24 year olds (referred to as Gen Z), were surveyed. Young Enterprise is a national financial education charity and the data was collected to mark their ‘My Money Week 2025’, which looks at helping improve young people’s confidence with money.
A fifth of Gen Z (21%) say they were not taught how to manage their money in school or college, highlighting the absence of structured education on financial matters. Almost half of the population (49%) believe the lack of financial education is a huge hurdle for young people in trying to establish healthy money habits. Gen Z are now turning to informal sources such as family and social media for advice. Roughly one in four (22%) of Gen Z respondents revealed that they had turned to social media for their financial support in the last 12 months. Further establishing, the lack of accessible and trustworthy sources of advice for young people to reach out to.
As a result of possible misinformation or a lack of advice, young people are facing a financial confidence crisis. Nearly two thirds (63%) of them feel judged by family (39%), friends (31%) or social media (17%) on how they manage their money. Not only are they facing low confidence, but some also feel their money management skills are not progressing. Almost a fifth (17%) of Gen Z feel they have not made improvements in how they handle their finances over the past 12 months.
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