Seldom-Heard Voices: Adult Literacy in the UK. A National Literacy Trust Research Report

The UK continues to face a huge adult-literacy challenge, with a sizeable percentage of the UK adult population having very low literacy skills. In addition to highlighting the literacy challenge in the UK, this report shows these individuals experience negative impacts on personal relationships, wellbeing, health, and education, as well as a greater risk of unemployment or being in low-paid work. In addition to many people struggling with low literacy skills, the report also showed that there are also many negative perceptions around, and attitudes towards, literacy. If more action is not taken to tackle low literacy in adults, there is the risk of perpetuating and reinforcing an intergenerational cycle of disadvantage.