Debt Fact and Figures
Compiled 9th January 2004 by Credit Action


Total UK personal debt at the end of Nov 2003 was £927bn. The growth rate was 15% for the quarter and 14.1% for the previous 12 months. The total debt is likely to reach £1 trillion in 2004.

Total secured lending on homes is £757bn and consumer credit lending to individuals is £170bn.

Secured lending is growing by £8.6bn / month and Consumer credit lending by £1.6bn / month.

Average household debt in the UK is £6,800 (excluding mortgages). Average personal debt for each adult in the UK is £4,426 (excluding mortgages) which is an increase of 30% in the last 12 months.

Personal debt has grown twice as fast as income since 1997 when New Labour took office. On average, personal debt has increased by 50%, while incomes have risen by 23%.

Nearly a quarter of the population are worried they will not be able to keep up with their debt repayments in the next three months.

Over six million UK households are now finding it difficult to meet their financial commitments.

A third of people regard their debt as a burden and 10% as a "heavy" burden, with many of those among lower income families.

The Prudential estimates that 700,000 people aged 65 or over have personal debts, apart from mortgages, totalling more than £1bn, an increase of 71% since 1996

CAB advisers across the UK have been dealing with an alarming 47% increase in the number of new consumer credit debt problems over the last five years which now total over one million / year.

A quarter of those in debt are receiving treatment for stress, depression and anxiety from their GP.

Nearly 2/3 of people don't worry about their debts until they have lost control of finances

23% of the population have no idea how much they owe

20% of people use personal loans & credit to survive until payday

More than 3 million people are struggling with energy bills, 4.7 million are in debt to their water company and more than a million have had their phone cut off.

At the end of 2002 there were 146 million payment and cash cards in issue in the UK, over three for every adult. Plastic cards are used for 44% of all non-cash payments and over 90% of cash withdrawals from bank accounts.

One in 20 people have five or more credit cards.

There are nearly 4,000 different types of credit cards. Most are issued by one of 33 issuers

153 plastic transactions took place every second in the UK in 2002 Nearly two-thirds, 62%, of households with incomes of £25,000- £34,999 fail to clear their credit card debts each month or have other forms of unsecured borrowing. For those with incomes of £35,000 to £59,000 the proportion was 58%, and for those with £60,000 or more, 48%.

Nearly half the people who take out credit in shops, hadn't planned to do so when they left home

One in five people admitted they would borrow to buy something straightaway rather than save up until they could afford to pay for it.

The amount of debt being chased by Britain's bailiffs has soared by 70% over the past two years to a record £5bn. The typical household falling into difficulty owes £25,000, spread across an average of 15 different lenders. 20 million cases have been passed to debt collectors over the past year.

There were 9,094 individual insolvencies in England and Wales in the third quarter of 2003. This was an increase of 4.1% on the previous quarter and an increase of 16.9% on the same period a year ago.

For students and recent graduates in particular, debt is at the forefront of their minds and often talked about as the most stressful problem in their lives

The average house price in the UK in October 2003 stood at £161,365. UK annual house price inflation was 12.1 per cent. Annual house price inflation in London was 6.2 per cent. (Office of Deputy Prime Minister)

The average house purchase loan value in September 2003 was £111,900 (£46,440 five years ago). This is 29% higher than a year ago and it is almost five times Britain's average salary of £25,000.

The average mortgage debt stands at £39,669

The number of first time buyers slumped to the lowest level on record in 2003.The average house price to earnings ratio was 4.27. The average deposit has quadrupled in a decade from £5,400 to £20,000.

Council tax on the average home has jumped by four times the rate of inflation, to exceed £1000 a year for the first time in 2003/2004.

Millions of Britons (55 per cent of the population) are failing to save money, raising concerns that mounting debt may be destroying the nation's will to save.

One in four adults cannot calculate the correct change from £2.00 for three grocery items totalling £1.58

Britons have written off £3.4bn in debts to friends and family, a report showed today. Seven out of 10 people have lent money and almost half of those never saw it again. Almost three-quarters of people said they had got into serious arguments or even ended relationships as a result of lending cash, the survey, carried out for Virgin Money, revealed.

The biggest cause of rows within a relationship is not infidelity but money, according to Relate

Quote of 2003: "I do not borrow on credit cards. It is too expensive; I have four young children. I give them advice not to pile up debts on credit cards" Matt Barrett the £1.7m-a-year CEO of Barclays Bank plc

Compiled by Richard Talbot.
Credit Action