I've seen my generation, and Gen Z after us, crushed by a cost of living crisis and a housing market that shut the door on adulthood

At the same time, UK Finance reports 84,100 homeowner mortgages were in arrears of 2.5% or more in Q3 2025. Though slightly down on the previous quarter, the figure lays bare the financial strain gripping British households.

For younger generations, this is nothing new. They’ve been feeling the squeeze for years.

Adulthood used to start at 18. These days, it’s more like 38. First Millennials, now Gen Z - young people are struggling in ways their parents never did.

Unlike earlier generations, who could buy a home with a steady job and modest wage, today’s youth face stagnant pay, soaring living costs, and mounting debt. Even though they earn higher inflation-adjusted wages than their parents did at the same age, those gains have been wiped out by runaway housing prices and economic instability.

For those who can’t afford to spend an average 40% of their income on rent, as tenant service Canopy found, they face the very real prospect of living with their parents - indefinitely.

University leaves many saddled with debt, and even small milestones have become luxuries. The cost of learning to drive has jumped 73% in five years, according to insurer Veygo. Rising interest rates in recent years have deepened the squeeze, pushing home and car ownership even further out of reach.

Work, too, has lost its security. The gig economy, valued at $556.7bn (£423.1bn) in 2024 and set to triple by 2032, offers flexibility older generations never had, but at the expense of security. Their parents enjoyed steady, pensionable jobs, the so-called ‘cradle to grave’ careers. Now, many young workers patch together multiple roles with no safety net.

“It’s cool,” my 19-year-old son, who works as a kitchen porter in a local restaurant, assures me. “It’s flexible, they call me when they need me.”

Flexibility, yes - but flexibility doesn’t build a pension or pay for a mortgage. How can this generation plan for a future their parents and grandparents took for granted?

In 2015, David Cameron promised to “turn generation rent into generation buy”, a pledge every prime minister since has recycled. Yet the dream of homeownership, remains just that - a dream. House prices have outpaced wages since the 1970s, and housing relative to earnings is now at its most unaffordable in more than a century. Only one in five Britons aged 18-34 live independently, most still live with their parents, analysis by the Financial Times shows.

The government’s plan to build 1.5m homes in England over the next five years is faltering. Planning approvals are at their lowest since records began in 1979, and in London, housebuilding has all but stalled. A recent decision to cut affordable housing requirements from 35% to 20% may speed construction, but at the expense of those who need it most.

As for retirement, by 2072 Britain will have around 22m pensioners, nearly double today’s number. A report from Rathbones warns that, accounting for inflation, young people will need £3m in their pension to retire comfortably - an impossible goal for those insecure work and paying sky-high rent.

For many, this isn’t just a cost-of-living crisis. It’s a cost-of-existence crisis.

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Gabrielle Pickard Whitehead is lead financial content writer at Money Wellness, with years of experience reporting on finances and economic equality.

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