Updated: 13 November 2025
This year, the annual child poverty statistics reveal persistently high rates of child poverty once again. More than 4.5 million children across the UK are living in poverty, representing just under one third of all children. This is despite the UK being one of the world's largest economies.
Food poverty is relatively simple to grasp. Our instinct as humans is that when a child needs food and that food is available, we should do everything within our power to provide it.
Some assume that when interventions like extending Free School Meals are achieved, the problem disappears. Free School Meals are essential for hard-pressed parents, but the experience of growing up in poverty reaches far beyond needing a hot meal at lunch. It's an experience that makes childhood smaller in all sorts of ways and can have long-lasting impacts as that child grows up.
Beyond Hungry Bellies
The problem is, child poverty runs much deeper than hunger. It's falling behind at school because the house was cold last night and there was nowhere to do homework. It's the absence from non-uniform day because your clothes are hand-me-downs and children can be cruel. It's running out of excuses when your friends want to spend money shopping or at the cinema on weekends and you must stay home again.
“Worrying all the time about how you're going to be able to give your kids the best you can is really hard when you can't budget because [there is] not enough money coming in.” - Parent
“I think it’s really sad that, depending on much money you have, it really shapes the opportunities that you can have. Like it really limits your field of vision for your future, cos like people say ‘oh I want to do this, I wanna go to this college or this university’ and it’s like, well you can’t really do that cos of how much money you have or what money you come from. It’s really like daunting” - Child, Secondary School age.
It's not going to a birthday party because your mum is fighting to cover the essentials, let alone buy your friend a present. It's not telling mum about the school trip because the cost is too dear, and you know she can't work any further shifts.
The Lasting Impact
All this adds up to a childhood of missed experiences, missed opportunities, of social exclusion and insecurity.
One of our parent campaigners told me growing up in poverty as a child still makes her feel like a failure today. Being from the 'wrong estate' meant she was treated differently by adults, made to feel that she wouldn't amount to anything and treated with suspicion. She internalised that feeling through to adulthood and still struggles with her self-worth.
She now experiences poverty as a mother and desperately wants her daughter to have everything she didn't. With the price of many daily essentials going up and the lack of government-funded support, this feels like an impossible goal.
Analysis shows that poverty levels are set to rise to 4.8 million children in poverty by 2030. That’s millions of childhoods at risk of falling into poverty in the UK, and millions of future adults dealing with the lasting scars.
Solutions Exist
We need to see choices being made that put children first. It’s time for the UK government to listen to children and their families and make choices to build a society that values its children, investing in their present and their future.
What we’re calling for:
Supporting through social security
We’re calling for a ‘child lock’ that would benefit all children by ensuring that children’s social security payments – like Universal Credit and Child Benefit – increase by whichever is higher: earnings or inflation.
Investing across government
We are also asking the UK government to lock in investment for children in education, housing and children’s mental health services, so that children have the support around them to achieve whatever they want to achieve.
Acting now so no child has to wait to get the help they need
When the cost-of-living crisis hits families hard, children can’t and shouldn’t be expected to deal with empty plates and empty stomachs while waiting for a plan to be made. That’s why we’re calling for policies like the unfair two-child limit to be scrapped.
No child should be scarred by poverty. Let's give all children an equal chance.
