How much should UK Employers spend on Financial Education and Wellbeing?
FinWELL Training research taken from the Financial Wellbeing Month Employers Guide
How much should UK Employers spend on Financial Education?
That’s a great question and what do you think ChatGPT says?
With the rise in mental health awarness and increasing cost of living challenges, we asked ChatGPT and feel free to do so yourself.
Here’s what it said…
Unsurprisingly, the response shared that “There’s no one-size-fits-all answer for how much UK employers should spend on financial education and wellbeing, but here are some benchmarks and expert recommendations to help guide it:
1. Financial Education
Suggested Spend:
£50–£150 per employee annually is a reasonable range for effective financial education programs.
This can include workshops, digital platforms, financial coaching, pension education, and debt management support.
Why:
Financial stress is linked to reduced productivity and absenteeism.
Studies show that every £1 invested in financial wellbeing can return between £2 to £5 in improved productivity and lower staff turnover.
2. General Wellbeing (Mental, Physical, Social)
Suggested Spend:
£100–£300 per employee per year is a common target among companies with formal wellbeing strategies.
More comprehensive programs (mental health platforms, EAPs, fitness programs, counselling, etc.) may push this closer to £500+ for larger employers or those in high-stress or high-risk sectors such as construction and transport.
Why:
Deloitte reports poor mental health costs UK employers £51 billion per year.
ROI on wellbeing programs averages £4.70 per £1 spent.
Best Practice Recommendation:
5–10% of total HR or L&D budget should be allocated toward wellbeing and financial education combined, particularly if the goal is to improve retention, engagement, and productivity.
FinWELL’s own research and best practice around Financial Education Provider Costs:
£25-50 per employee, per year seems to be the average cost from our research across various providers in the financial education and wellbeing space with most offering a digital or platform offering.
FinWELL offer financial education support that can be embedded as a core employee benefit from as little as £12 per employee, per year.
FinWELL Workshops and Webinars range from £750-£950 for 60 mins online and 1-1 sessions are £75 for 30 mins online.
Awareness and Champion Training ranges from £75 per person for 60 mins online to £245 per person for 150 mins online and 12 months ongoing training and support. This training is for key employees, leaders, managers, wellbeing leads, mental health first aiders and champions.
What financial education and wellbeing support do employees want most?
Best Practice Recommendation:
Data from the Financial Wellbeing Month Employers Guide 2025 provided by FinWELL Training shows that financial resilience and future planning are the two key elements of financial wellbeing that need improving most with 19% and 31% of employees identifying as in crises (score between 0-3 out of 10) respectively.
This was ahead of general confidence and relationships with money showing 11% of employees in crisis and ability to pay bills and cover basic living costs at 10% of employees in crisis.
Key Areas of Focus and Life Stages for Employees when it comes to financial education needs are Investing (37% of employees wanting support in this area) and Retirement Planning (21% of employees.
These were ahead of Money Management at 18%, Financial Protection at 13% and Tbe Property Ladder at 11%.
Financial Guidance and then Education were the two most requested forms of support from employees with 38% wanting access to group workshops and 1-1 support and 36% wanting access to trusted and varied educational including videos, podcasts, infographics and podcasts.
26% requested access to financial advice support once they understood the difference between education, guidance and advice.
The three most common goals to improve financial wellbeing were identified by FinWELL as Putting a Budgeting Plan in Place (41%), Build an Emergency Fund (33%) and then Review Pensions & Retirement Plans (26%) and next was Create/Review Will (25%).
In Summary
Employers are recognising the need (and opportunity) to offer financial education and wellbeing support as most employers didn’t learn the basics around money at school and this is having a huge impact on mental health affecting personal lives and work.
We will see a rise in financial education being offered to employees in an effort to improve mental health, absenteeism and presenteeism, recruitment and retention of talent, performance, productivity and ultimately profit.
We believe this will soon become a core employee benefit and embedded within the recruitment and onboarding process and then at various life stages and key events along life’s financial journey.
The sensitivities around our personal finances and stigma and even shame associated with ‘talking about money' mean that careful consideration should be given to the approach taken by any training and education providers you work with.
Finally, we believe the key to effective financial education and wellbeing is ensuring that it’s inclusive and personalised offering a wide range of support for all employees needs and learning styles on both a digital, online and in-person human-basis that can be regularly measured and reviewed.
Contact us to explore any of the Financial Education and Wellbeing services offered by FinWELL Training.