When Universal Credit (UC) is fully rolled out in 2026, the proportion of claims with one or more self-employed earners is expected to reach around one in ten, equivalent to around 700,000 households. Self-employed people therefore represent an important subgroup of claimants. However, there is limited evidence about their experiences on UC. This matters because the regulations which apply to UC claimants who ‘work for themselves’ are quite different from those which apply to claimants who are employed. Eligibility criteria and conditionality rules are also much stricter than those which formerly applied to recipients of working tax credit (WTC).

To help fill the evidence gap, this report by Dr Rita Griffiths and Dr Marsha Wood synthesises findings from two qualitative, longitudinal research studies conducted between 2018 and 2024. Drawing on interviews with 16 self-employed participants, they investigate their understanding and experiences of UC policies. Findings provide valuable insights into the ways in which UC policies around self-employment are being experienced and responded to by this important but somewhat neglected group of claimants. Recommendations are made for improving support and outcomes for self-employed people on UC.

An accompanying policy brief summarises the key findings and recommendations.

The policy brief, written by Dr Joanna Clifton-Sprigg, Dr Alistair Hunt, Lily Zelezetskii and James Bailey, evaluates a reform to UK paternity leave, and finds that expanding paternity leave to six weeks (taken flexibly in the first year of child’s life) at 90% of average weekly earnings could deliver £12.8 billion in annual net social benefits.

Their cost-benefit analysis finds that better-paid, extended and flexible leave policy earmarked to fathers would yield substantial gains through increased maternal employment and improved parental wellbeing. With approximately 75% of eligible fathers expected to take up such leave, the economic and social benefits are significant. In contrast, lower-paid options see substantially reduced take-up and impact. Beyond direct economic effects, increased paternal involvement is linked to better child development, greater family stability, and improved workplace satisfaction.

The researchers recommend the introduction of six weeks’ paternity leave, paid at 90% of average weekly earnings and available from day one of employment. A weekly earnings cap could help contain costs while maintaining strong uptake.

Future retirees in the UK are likely to have a state pension and a Defined Contribution (DC) pension pot to support them through retirement. Policymakers are currently looking at new rules to require pension providers to set up post-retirement 'defaults' as to how the money will be accessed, but there is currently little data on what pensioners actually want.

This paper – authored by Dr Aida Garcia-Lazaro, Dr Ricky Kanabar and Steve Webb – uses a specially constructed dataset covering the detailed spending patterns of over 100,000 pensioners surveyed between 1968 and 2019 to shed light on this question. It examines the profile of real spending through retirement for the sample as a whole, and then separately for different birth cohorts and different housing tenure groups.

Both before and since the 2024 UK general election, politicians have been talking about the potential value of impact investment in achieving their policy goals. Despite this interest, and an increasing body of evidence from live examples, it has proven hard for policymakers to understand how to integrate impact investment options into their policy toolkit.

This report by Stephen Muers, Chief Executive Officer of Better Society Capital, aims to introduce some of the circumstances in which this approach might be helpful, specifically within a UK domestic context and reflecting the different levels of government that can make use of it.

This report by Dr Marsha Wood, Dr Rita Griffiths and Professor Nick Pearce draws on interviews with 22 low-income parents in receipt of Universal Credit (UC) and explores how they manage childcare costs, as well as their broader experiences of childcare and work conditionality requirements.

In particular, the report focuses on the challenges low-income parents faced with reclaiming childcare costs through the childcare element of Universal Credit. The report makes a number of recommendations about improving childcare support for low-income families.

The interviews were conducted as part of a wider qualitative longitudinal research study, funded by abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, exploring the experiences of working claimants on UC.

The report is accompanied by a policy brief summarising the key findings and recommendations.

This guide, written by Dr Poornika Ananth, is intended as a resource for policymakers to help them understand how to use qualitative research methodologies in the written public consultation process.

Qualitative data are vivid, rich, and nuanced, and are particularly beneficial when complex processes and relationships between constructs need to be understood or examined, when individuals’ lived experiences, interpretations, and social contexts need to be captured, and when knowledge is incomplete, underdeveloped, or flawed.

The brief provides guidance on how to collect and analyse qualitative data from the public in ways that account for the standard constraints of public consultation processes and enable the development of an actionable set of policy insights.