Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain: 10 to 21 April 2024

The following information is for the latest survey period, 10 to 21 April 2024, based on adults in Great Britain.

• When asked about the important issues facing the UK today, the most commonly reported issues were: the cost of living (87%), the NHS (86%) and the economy (70%); other commonly reported issues were climate change and the environment (61%), housing (55%), crime (55%), immigration (51%), and international conflict (50%).

• The proportion of adults reporting international conflict as an important issue facing the UK increased from around a third in October 2023 (34% in the period 20 September to 1 October 2023), to around half (50%) by November 2023 (15 to 26 November 2023); this figure has generally remained similar since (50% in the latest period).

• Older adults (62% among those aged 70 years and over) were more likely to report that international conflict was an important issue than younger adults (43% among those aged 16 to 29 years and 42% among those aged 30 to 49 years).

• The proportion of adults reporting industrial action as an important issue facing the UK has gradually decreased since we first started asking about this in January 2023 (from 44% in the period 21 December 2022 to 8 January 2023, to 24% in the latest period).

We continued to ask about people's experiences related to increases in the cost of living.

• Around 4 in 10 (40%) reported it was very or somewhat difficult to afford their rent or mortgage payments in the latest period; this proportion remains higher than when we first asked about this in March 2022 (30% during the period 16 to 27 March 2022).

• Around a third (34%) of those who pay energy bills reported it was very or somewhat difficult to afford them during this period; this proportion is lower than when we first asked about this in March 2022 (43% during the period 16 to 27 March 2022).

This release contains data and indicators from the Office for National Statistics' (ONS's) Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN).

Breakdowns by age and sex have been provided for fortnightly estimates in the latest edition and the previous edition (27 March to 7 April 2024) of the Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain datasets. Prior to this, breakdowns by age and sex were reported until the 17 to 29 May 2023 edition of all datasets. This is based on routine review of the relevance and usefulness of this release. Estimates from the OPN by a variety of personal characteristics are provided on a regular basis in other ONS releases. For example, OPN estimates relating to the impact of the cost of living among different subgroups of the population are provided within the regular Impact of increased cost of living on adults across Great Britain series.

Confidence intervals are provided for all estimates in the datasets. Where changes in results from previous weeks are presented in this release, or comparisons between estimates are made, associated confidence intervals should be used to assess the statistical significance of the differences. 

Sampling and weighting

In the latest period (10 to 21 April 2024), we sampled 4,999 households. This sample was randomly selected from people who had previously completed the Labour Market Survey (LMS) or OPN. The responding sample for the latest period contained 2,335 individuals, representing a 47% response rate.

Survey weights were applied to make estimates representative of the population (based on ONS population estimates). Because of sampling changes in July 2023, some groups in our unweighted sample may be overrepresented. Further information on the survey design and quality can be found in our Opinions and Lifestyle Survey Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).