Pulse Check 2025: Public Attitudes
Towards Early Education and Childcare
As part of our ongoing work to reframe the national conversation on early education and childcare, we conduct an annual survey of public attitudes with our research partner, More in Common.
Pulse Check 2025 was conducted ahead of Labour’s first anniversary in Government and just weeks before it published the Best Start in Life Strategy, setting out plans to reform the early years system.
While public support for investing in early education continues to rise, so do concerns about cost and availability. We heard consistently across all focus groups and demographics that parents want the Government to support them with childcare costs but not at the expense of quality. They want the system to be properly funded and the workforce respected. The wider public agrees and recognises that the sector is being asked to do more, with less.
As one parent says ‘something has to change’. Time will tell whether the Best Start in Life Strategy is enough to do that.
Watch the webinar: Pulse Check 2025
The Snapshot
69% of the public think that investing in early education and childcare is good for the whole country, not just parents - the highest level of support in three years.
Giving children a good start in life is seen as the primary benefit of investing in early education (45%), compared to 37% who think the main benefit is to help parents work.
15% of parents have quit their jobs in the last year due to childcare challenges. A third (32%) have borrowed money from family/friends or taken out a loan/credit card to pay for childcare.
71% of the public think all children should have access to early education regardless of their parents’ employment status.
66% of parents think that early education professionals do not get the respect they deserve.
“Between my partner and myself, we pretty much pay a second mortgage for childcare a month.
It’s unsustainable, and we’ve only got one child. To have a second one, it’s prohibitive.”