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Maths and the UK

• Around half of working-age adults in the country are estimated to have the numeracy level expected of a primacy school child. (source)
• Low numeracy costs the UK £25 billion per year. (source)
• Over a quarter of adults leave school without a Maths GCSE. (source)
• 35% of adults experience maths anxiety. (source)
• 59% of parents find maths the toughest subject to teach their children. (source)

Gender 

• 54% of girls and 43% of boys lack confidence in learning maths. (source)
• 54% of British girls don’t feel confident learning maths, compared to 41% of boys. (source)
• 35% of women, compared to just 20% of men, agreed or strongly agreed with the statement ‘If a job I was interested in listed "using numbers and data" as a requirement, it would put me off applying.’ (source)

Careers and finance

• A third of UK adults (32%) say being able to better manage their money is the reason they want to improve their maths and numeracy skills. This rises to over a third (34%) of women, compared to 30% of men. (source)
• 35% of those with children in the household gave money as the reason, but this rose to 44% for people with children aged 4 years and under, and 40% for people with children 5-11 years. (source)
• A huge proportion of young people say they want to use improved numeracy in order to better manage their money: 42% of those aged 18-24, the largest percentage of any age group. (source)
• The biggest demographic of all in need of numeracy for money management is full-time students, 46% of whom said this was a need for them. (source)