UK in 2030: older, more unequal and blighted by Brexit, report predicts

UK in 2030: older, more unequal and blighted by Brexit, report predicts Britain faces a decade of disruption after Brexit with low growth, stagnating incomes for the poor and the public finances at breaking point, according to a bleak analysis by a leading thinktank. The report, Britain in the 2020s, by the Institute of Public Policy Research, says Brexit will “profoundly reshape the UK … painful trade-

offs are almost certain. Growth is expected to be lower, investment rates worse, and the public finances weaker as a result of Brexit.” The analysis, which draws on data from the OECD, the ONS and numerous economists and researchers, forecasts a 30% increase in the number of over-65s in the population by 2030, and a doubling of the number of over-85s. It predicts that the proportion of the population that is non-white will climb to more than one in five within 12 years. The world of work will be revolutionised with millions of jobs in retail and manufacturing disappearing as a result of automation and the internet, the report says. Income inequality will become more entrenched, as will the wealth gap between London and the rest of the country. By 2030 households will on average be £1,700 worse off per year than they would have been if Britain had stayed in the EU, with a persistently falling currency driving up prices and hitting the living standards of poorer people the hardest, according to the report.

Low-income households are predicted to see their earnings rise by just 2% between now and 2030, leaving them little better off than a generation before. Meanwhile, the average FTSE 100 chief executive’s pay is forecast to soar to £9.5m by 2030 – 350 times the median income, up from a multiple of 144 today.

The report’s author, Mathew Lawrence, said the IPPR had taken a neutral position during the run-up to the EU referendum, and the report simply highlighted how Brexit would exacerbate challenges around inequality and low productivity that the UK was already facing.

New barriers to trade after Britain leaves the EU are likely to drive the currency down and to increase costs, the report says.

Government finances may buckle under the strain of NHS and pension spending as Britain ages and Brexit reduces the tax base. The 65-plus population will rise to 15.4 million by 2030, from 11.6 million today, while the working-age population will rise by just 3%. 

The IPPR predicts a £13bn shortfall in the funding of adult social care alone by 2030 as the government struggles to finance care for elderly people in their homes. 

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Pressure on schools, hospitals and infrastructure will also increase as Britain’s population continues to grow rapidly despite a short-term post-Brexit reduction in EU migration. The report forecasts that the UK will have the fastest growing population of any major country in Europe, overtaking France’s population by 2030 and Germany’s in the late 2040s.

The IPPR also predicts a more diverse country, with the non-white proportion rising from 14% in 2011 to 21% by 2030 and to more than a third of the population by 2050.

Vast numbers of workers in the UK face losing their jobs as automation progresses, with the economy soon hitting “peak human” before robots and artificial intelligence take over, the IPPR argues. 

It forecasts that 2m jobs in retail will disappear by 2030 and 600,000 will go in manufacturing.

Britain in the 2020s will continue to see a hollowing out of middle-income jobs, with large numbers of well-paid jobs in a few industries – largely in London and the south-east – offset by a growing precariat of poorly paid, often self-employed workers. “There will be more self-employed workers in the 2020s than public sector employees,” the report says.

It says the rest of the world also faces a slowdown in economic growth, partly as population growth slows and partly because of climate change.