This latest report provides insight into the demographic and debt information of new clients who first received debt advice in April 2022. It also includes the latest insights on our website traffic trends.
Our key findings from April 2022:
- Fewer clients accessed full debt advice in April 2022 (12,500) compared to March (around 15,000), however this represents a similar seasonal trend also found in 2021; each individual month in the first quarter of each year has seen more clients needing debt advice than in April.
- A growing proportion of clients cited a ‘cost of living increase’ among their main reasons for debt (15%). This is now the second most cited reason among new StepChange Clients. By comparison, just 7% of clients cited this in September 2021.
- An increased proportion of clients were in receipt of Universal Credit in April (34%) compared to March (32%).
- Around one third (32%) of clients were in a negative budget at the time of advice in April 2022, up by three percentage points compared to the same month in 2021 (29%).
- The proportion of new clients behind on the most common unsecured debt types such as credit cards, catalogues and payday loans fell in April compared to previous months.
- However, the proportion of clients with household arrears such as council tax has also decreased, although energy arrears levels continue to slowly increase.
Take a look at the full report to find out more.
2022
2021
2020