Build Hope From the Ground Up - The Hope Index 2025
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5654 & Company’s latest research reveals how younger people have become hopeful in the last year as hope among older generations has declined. And those living in the North East of England have significantly lost hope in the last year.
In the first year of the new Government, overall hope among the UK public has fallen, eroded by concern for the fate of the UK as a whole, but personal hope remains steady.
11% who voted Labour in 2024 now say they would vote Reform if the election were held tomorrow, and this group are more pessimistic than the average voter about the lives of others across the UK.
5654 & Company’s sixth annual Hope Index – which studies how hopeful the UK public feel about their lives, their community and the country – reveals the divide between “the hopeful” and “the pessimists” within the UK public, and how this has begun to emerge along party political lines in the last year.
As younger people have become more hopeful, the average “hopeful” is most likely to be between 25-34 years old, living in Greater London and a Labour voter. The average “pessimist” is older (between 55-64 years old), living in the North East of England and to have either voted Reform in 2024 or would vote Reform in the next General Election. Labour-Reform switchers are also generally much more likely to be pessimistic overall but particularly about the state of the country and the lives of people across the UK. These voters are most likely to be 45-54 years old, living in the North West of England, with a household income of between £15,000 - £29,999.
The research also shows how hope has fallen during Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s first year in Government. The research findings show that since the election was called last year, net hopefulness (% hopeful - % not hopeful) has fallen from 36% to 32% among the UK public. While people remain fairly hopeful about their personal lives, the drop in hope has been driven by a significant fall in how hopeful people feel about the lives of people across the UK, with net hopefulness dropping from 20% to 11.90%.
Improving the NHS and helping people with the cost of living are the most important issues for improving hope at a personal, community and country level. For the ‘elite’ proxy audience, economic growth becomes more important and is the top issue for the driving hope, indicating that this audience are quicker to connect with this fundamental part of the Government’s agenda. For Labour to Reform ‘switchers’, the NHS and cost of living continue to be the most important issues for driving hope, though tackling immigration becomes more important, particularly when considering the lives of people across the country (with 64.4% saying action on this would increase their hopefulness).
5654 & Company have been studying hope since the company was founded over 5 years ago in March 2020, and has tracked how hope has risen and fallen over this period (peaking in August 2021 following the Covid-19 vaccine rollout and falling to its lowest in July 2022 alongside rising inflation and the emergence of the cost-of-living crisis).