The government should require large employers to provide workplace financial education to improve retirement outcomes, productivity, and financial resilience across the UK workforce, a white paper from MicroFact has suggested.

The report, Financial Education at Work: A Policy Blueprint for a More Resilient UK, proposed that employers with 250 or more staff should be mandated to offer regular financial education to employees, mirroring the existing threshold for gender pay gap reporting.

According to the paper, financial knowledge remained unevenly distributed despite reforms to pensions and education, with millions of workers experiencing financial stress and feeling unprepared for retirement.

It highlighted data suggesting that around 11.5 million people had less than £100 in savings, while only 20 per cent of employees were currently on track for a comfortable retirement.

MicroFact argued that the workplace was a trusted, scalable channel for improving financial capability, as employees already engaged with payroll, pensions, and benefits through their employer.

The paper also linked poor financial resilience to wider issues such as lost productivity, estimating that financial stress could cost UK employers more than £10bn a year in reduced output.

Therefore, the proposal set out a core curriculum covering budgeting, debt management, pensions, retirement planning, investment fundamentals, fraud awareness, and consumer protection.

Delivery would be flexible, allowing employers to use digital tools, workshops or third-party providers, provided content met nationally agreed standards overseen by the Money and Pensions Service (Maps).

The paper also highlighted the role workplace education could play in narrowing the gender pension gap, noting that it remained close to 48 per cent in private pensions.

Now You’re Talking Network founder, Mary Agbesanwa, said the gap was “a symptom of unequal access to information and opportunity” and argued that democratising financial education at work could empower more women to engage with long-term planning.

Other industry figures quoted in the report pointed to potential business benefits.

Rest Easier founder and chief executive officer, Will Spencer, stressed that financial well-being was “no longer a luxury” but a foundation for a resilient workforce, while Hoops Finance founder, Funmi Olufunwa, argued that financially well employees “make business sense”.

The white paper also drew on international examples from Australia, Finland and the US, suggesting that employer involvement, clear standards and sustained engagement were common features of successful systems.

It proposed a phased implementation, starting with pilots and guidance before moving to mandatory provision for qualifying employers within three years.

MicroFact added that the proposals were intended to complement existing national strategies, including the UK Strategy for Financial Wellbeing, and to sit clearly on the education side of the advice boundary.

Moneybox director of personal finance, Brian Byrnes, concluded that improving financial confidence was essential to encouraging better long-term decisions, adding that people “won’t act on what they don’t understand”.

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