Consumer Optimism

Not in the GfK sense, and we don't call it one. GfK asks about your finances and the economy over the next 12 months. Konfidant asks one consistent question every week – how optimistic are you feeling about life in general at the moment? – to 2,000 UK adults. Net optimism is the share feeling optimistic minus the share feeling pessimistic. Our view: the future turns up in feelings first, so this is the number to watch alongside consumer confidence, not instead of it.

Weekly, nationally representative online research with 2,000 UK adults. Fieldwork runs Monday to Wednesday, and each wave is weighted to the UK population and checked through our data quality framework before it enters the platform. The optimism question has been asked in the same words every week since March 2020.

Every Friday morning. The weekly report carries the headline read, the direction of movement, the groups driving the shift and the mood behind it. On the first Tuesday of each month, a deeper monthly report turns the weekly signals into a forward view for brands.

Traditional consumer confidence indices give a useful economic signal from a small set of fixed questions about personal finances, the economy and spending, published monthly. Konfidant publishes weekly, asks about life rather than money, and reads the result against 22,000+ wider survey questions, open-ended responses and a qualitative community of 50 UK households to explain the why.

It usually means habits are about to change, and the reason matters. We look at the seasonal pattern, the year-on-year movement and the wider mood signals before calling a fall meaningful – a dip driven by winter fatigue looks different from one driven by prices, politics or job insecurity.