Is consumer confidence falling?

The short answer: yes, consumer confidence is falling and remains under pressure. It remains significantly below pre-pandemic levels, around 15 points down, and the last five years have seen repeated false dawns, with each recovery stalling before it gains momentum.

Traditional confidence indices will tell you the score is down. They won’t tell you why it’s falling differently for different groups, what’s actually driving the pessimism, or where things might be heading next. For that, you need to look beneath the surface.

What headline indices show

The GfK Consumer Confidence Index – the UK’s most widely cited measure – shows confidence tracking below historical norms, with periodic lifts that haven’t sustained.

This pattern is real. But GfK’s methodology, built around a small set of financially-focused questions, tends to amplify economic events and smooth out everything else. During the cost-of-living crisis, for instance, GfK scores dropped sharply – more sharply than behavioural data suggested they should, given the adaptive strategies consumers were actually deploying.

That’s not a flaw in GfK’s design – it’s a consequence of what the index was built to measure. It reflects how people answer questions about money. It doesn’t capture the fuller picture of how they’re feeling, coping or planning.

Recent consumer confidence trends

Konfidant’s data – based on 2,000 weekly interviews and six years of continuous tracking – shows confidence currently sitting a couple of points below this time last year. That sounds modest until you factor in the baseline: we’re still well over ten points down on pre-pandemic levels.

The pattern since 2020 has been repeated cycles of tentative recovery followed by stall. Each time confidence starts to build, something knocks it back – new economic pressures, political instability, global shocks.

We describe the current period as one of ‘storm and slump’:

• Storm refers to the chaos of the wider world – geopolitical instability, wars, the uncertainties of AI, climate anxiety, the unpredictability of US politics
• Slump refers to the domestic economic reality – low growth, stretched public finances, systems that feel increasingly broken

These are opposing forces, and they’re unsettling in different ways. Consumers are caught between global uncertainty they can’t control and local stagnation they can’t escape.

This doesn’t contradict headline indices – it explains why they behave the way they do.

Why averages mask volatility in consumer confidence

Headline confidence figures are national averages. They tell you how “the UK” feels. The trouble is, there’s no such thing as a single UK consumer.

The average can appear stable not because nothing is changing – but because opposing movements cancel each other out. Beneath the surface, confidence is moving very differently across segments:

• Young adults are under particular pressure. Traditional paths to security – stable employment, home ownership, pension building – are closing down. Many are carrying student debt into a weak job market with little prospect of getting on the housing ladder. Their optimism, while typically higher than older groups, is being eroded.
• Their parents are increasingly anxious too. Partly this is worry for their children’s futures. But it’s also fear for their own retirement. Government support is thinning, the rules are changing, and there’s limited time to replan. This ‘sandwich generation’ is squeezed from both directions.

The gap between rich and poor persists – higher earners remain more confident – but the more significant story is the divergence between how senior decision-makers perceive consumer sentiment and what the data actually shows. The world of £200k+ earners is very different from the median experience. Boardrooms are often surprised by what the data reveals.

What real-time sentiment reveals

Traditional indices focus almost exclusively on money. Modern consumer sentiment analysis, by contrast, tracks a wider set of drivers – and two stand out as the dominant forces shaping confidence right now:

• Money and health. Both are hygiene factors – foundational to feeling secure. Consumers are constantly juggling the tension between financial stability and physical or mental wellbeing. Neither can be sacrificed for the other, and both feel precarious.
• A third driver is emerging with growing force: work-life balance. In a low-growth economy where traditional markers of prosperity feel out of reach, people are redefining what a ‘rich life’ means. It’s less about accumulation, more about quality of time, relationships and energy.

This shift has significant implications for how brands position value – but it’s invisible in indices that only ask about money.

The overall mood? Uncertain, but desperately wanting a way forward.

People feel like they’re falling behind, holding on and hoping for progress – often all at once. The mental load is draining. Energy is being channelled into what feels controllable, with a clear opportunity for brands to help turn intention into momentum.One counterintuitive finding: despite everything, humans remain remarkably resilient. Faced with adversity, they adapt. The patterns of adaptation are identifiable – and for organisations paying attention, they reveal how to respond.

How brands should respond

1. Stop relying on lagging indicators

Monthly headline figures tell you where confidence was, not where it’s heading. By the time a drop shows up in traditional indices, the consumers who drove it have already changed their behaviour. Weekly tracking with segment-level granularity provides an earlier signal of falling consumer confidence – and more time to respond.

2. Look beyond the average

A national confidence score masks the segments that matter most to your business. Are your core customers more or less confident than the mean? Are emerging audiences feeling differently? The average is a starting point, not an answer.

3. Understand the drivers, not just the score

Knowing confidence is down doesn’t help unless you know why. Is it financial anxiety? Health concerns? Political uncertainty? Fatigue? Each driver suggests a different response. Indices that only track the number leave you guessing.

4. Watch for adaptive behaviour

Falling confidence doesn’t always mean falling spend. Consumers adapt – trading down, switching categories, redefining priorities. The relationship between sentiment and behaviour is more complex than traditional models assume. Research that connects the two is more useful than research that tracks either alone.

5. Help people feel in control

When confidence is low and the world feels chaotic, consumers gravitate toward what they can control. Brands that reduce friction, simplify decisions and offer a sense of agency will earn disproportionate loyalty. The opportunity isn’t to pretend everything’s fine – it’s to help people move forward despite the uncertainty shaping consumer confidence.