Understanding Society ask participants about various aspects of their household and individual finances. The complement this information, linked data is available on specific financial areas.
Linked auto-enrolment pension (NEST) data is currently available to researchers, with linked credit history (CRA) data becoming available later in 2023.
Linked financial data available for research
Auto-enrolment pension (NEST) dataset, 2014-2022: Secure Access
The Nest linked dataset provides data from the Nest pensions accounts of 1672 Understanding Society respondents who have consented to have these data linked and made available for research. Nest (the National Employment Savings Trust) is a large workplace pension provider set up by the UK government to accept enrolments from workers who are eligible for enrolment into a workplace pension, under the UK’s national programme of pensions auto-enrolment. The linked data are available via the UK Data Service under their Secure Access category. Researchers are required to attend a Safe Researcher training course to access the Study.