Our new report on ‘Jobs and Investment: using untapped capital to boost productivity and jobs’

You can view the full report here.

This week, the Jobs Foundation has published Jobs and Investment: Using untapped capital to boost productivity and growth, a new report which finds that Britain’s current economic stagnation stems does not stem from a shortage of capital, but a system that prevents millions of ordinary savers from putting their money to work. 

Currently, ordinary Brits hold around £2.3 trillion in cash savings accounts, silently eroding value to inflation. A new survey of 2,000 British adults conducted for the report in February 2026 found that 78% are holding cash for policy-addressable reasons such as distrust of the tax environment, fears about fees and opacity in financial products, and lack of understanding of available options.

The Government has made boosting retail investment a priority, backing last month’s launch of the Investment Association’s ‘Savvy Squirrel’ retail investment campaign, backed by £50 million of funding from City firms to encourage British savers to move their savings from cash into investment. The Chancellor has argued in favour of a nationwide push to encourage more financial risk taking, and a new Bill on Financial Services is expected in the upcoming King’s Speech on May 13^th. 

Jobs and Investment argues that this lack of investment is to blame for the UK’s productivity slowdown – and finds that had productivity growth kept pace with the average of 2.5% annually during the 1980s and 1990s, the average worker would be earning £24 more per hour today. 

The report calculates that mobilising just 15% of the cash held in savings accounts would add £300 billion to productive investment – more than enough to close the UK’s £100bn annual capital gap and making a significant contribution to boosting productivity and wages across the country.

Polling conducted for the survey finds that the public are keen to invest. 83% would invest more if those reasons were addressed. Additionally, 68% state they would be more likely to move their money out of cash if their savings were used to fund UK-based infrastructure like hospitals, energy or new tech.

The report models the impact of this increased investment, finding that mobilising just £100bn of additional productive investment per year could lift GDP per capita growth from the OBR’s forecast of 1.1% to 1.6% – cutting the time to double living standards from 64 years to 44. 

The overlooked source of fixing that investment gap is the savings of 13.5 million “Mainstream Investor” households – those with £10,000 to £250,000 in net investable wealth outside their home and pension – which the polling in the report highlights is due to regulatory environment systematically discouraging them from doing otherwise. 

Lord Elliott of Mickle Fell, President of the Jobs Foundation said:

“We are sitting on an egregious waste of resources. Eight in ten savers want to invest more but are held back by the rules and culture we have built around them. The capital is there. The appetite is there. This report sets out exactly what it would take to bring them together.”

The report identifies two further reasons for urgency. First, a generational crisis: younger people are embracing “financial nihilism” – a fatalistic belief that the system cannot work for them – channelling their risk appetite into crypto and gambling rather than productive investment. Second, a fiscal timebomb: the OBR projects state pension and pensioner benefit costs will rise from 5.9% to 8.9% of GDP by 2068/69, an increase equivalent to the entire defence budget. A generation that builds wealth through investment is a generation less dependent on the state.

Andy Haldane, President of the British Chamber of Commerce and former Chief Economist at the Bank of England said:

“Britain’s productivity problem has always had its roots in finance: too little capital reaching the businesses that need it most, and too many people locked out of the returns that investment can generate. This report connects those two failures, making the case that getting mainstream savers into productive investment is not just good for their own financial wellbeing, but one of the most powerful levers we have for closing the gap between Britain’s potential and its performance.”

The report’s four-part programme – education, access, higher returns, and lower risks – involves no mandates, quotas or new public spending. Specific proposals include embedding investment compounding in GCSE and A-level maths; using HMRC data to give every Mainstream Investor a verified annual investment budget under the FCA’s Restricted Investor framework; abolishing stamp duty on shares; mandating a health warning about the risks of holding too much cash alongside existing investment warnings; and launching retail infrastructure bonds so ordinary savers can back projects like new reservoirs.

You can view the full report here.