Low number confidence is a widespread issue across the UK. That’s why we are thrilled to present the impact report for the fourth Number Confidence Week – the only UK campaign that focuses on how people feel about using numbers – and share how the campaign helped the nation feel more confident and comfortable with the maths they need in everyday life.
News
Our impact: Number Confidence Week 2023
11 Dec 2023
The fourth Number Confidence Week reached more people than ever before, as outlined in a new report.
Since the first Number Confidence Week in 2020, the campaign has inspired more than a quarter of a million actions to improve confidence with numbers across the UK with an incredible 108,713 actions taken in 2023 alone.
These included:
- 51,253 actions on the National Numeracy Challenge
- 55,159 views of our campaign videos
- 2,301 downloads of our resources
With our suite of free activities we helped people feel confident with maths for managing money, getting on at work, and supporting their families and children.
We also launched our latest research briefing with a Number Confidence and Social Mobility webinar, highlighting the crucial role that number confidence plays in skills improvement:
And we had a wide variety of people helping us spread the message, including:
- The Lord Mayor of the City of London, who hosted a free event to encourage London-based organisations to take part in National Numeracy’s ‘Every Londoner Counts’ initiative,
- Author Peter James, who supported the campaign with a prize draw for signed copies of his latest novel Stop Them Dead,
- Our real-life learners, Jo, Rebecca and Stella, who shared their personal stories of number confidence,
- Our very own National Numeracy agony aunts who launched a new video series called ‘Dear NN…’ to explore some of the stories shared with us during training sessions – from the impact of bad experiences at school, to overcoming low number confidence in the workplace,
- Our celebrity ambassadors, like finance expert Mr MoneyJar who hosted an Instagram Live series across the week chatting to content creators, and Bake Off winner Peter Sawkins who shared a ‘day in the life’ video to get his followers thinking about how we all use maths every day. And we announced our brand-new ambassador Jessica Gagen – an aerospace engineering graduate, and the current Miss England
Number Confidence Week was more discussed than ever across the UK, with the campaign making 28 appearances across national and regional media outlets, with an audience reach of 40.5 million! And people engaged with our content more than 106,000 times on social media.
Sam Sims, Chief Executive of National Numeracy said:
"With the cost-of-living crisis ongoing and an understanding of everyday numeracy as vital as ever, we are thrilled that our fourth Number Confidence Week campaign provided crucial support to people across the UK when it came to taking the first step towards improving their relationship with numbers.
"As always, a heartfelt thank you to the campaign’s Founding Supporter, TP ICAP; Lead Supporters Barclays LifeSkills, Capital One, Experian, The Lord Mayor’s Appeal and Vanquis Banking Group; and all those individuals and communities who got involved with this high impact campaign and helped make it such a success."
Philip Price, Executive Director of TP ICAP, Founding Supporter of Number Confidence Week, said:
"At TP ICAP, we understand that numeracy skills are vital in today’s world. Whether it’s managing your personal finances, feeling equipped to help your children with their maths homework, or applying for a job, low number confidence can make these seemingly everyday tasks seem pretty daunting. We want to change that, which is why we are the proud founding partner of Number Confidence Week.
"We’re particularly focused on helping people from all backgrounds build their number confidence levels so that they feel empowered to pursue employment opportunities in our sector, financial services. This helps both advance social mobility and enable our industry to hire a more diverse range of talent, which is critical to future success."
