Research and analysis

DWP Areas of Research Interest 2026

Published 19 June 2026

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Foreword

Evidence is central to how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) serves the public. Our analysts and scientists provide ministers and officials with rigorous research, robust data, and insight into people’s lived experience.

The Areas of Research Interest (ARI) published here invite the research community to partner with us on the questions that matter most for work, welfare, and pensions. They set out high-level priorities to spark collaboration, align programmes, and accelerate impact across policy and delivery. I am delighted to launch DWP’s 2026 ARI, reaffirming our commitment to external engagement and the best possible evidence. Much has changed since the last ARI and will continue to change.

The UK labour market and welfare system face complex, evolving challenges. ARI exist to focus collective effort where robust evidence can unblock problems, improve services, and change lives. DWP supports over 23 million customers, aiming to drive opportunity and reduce poverty nationwide. To succeed, we need strong partnerships with researchers.

Government responsibilities also shift – such as skills moving from the Department for Education (DfE) to DWP in September 2025 – so our ARI must adapt to this dynamism. They form a key part of our Evidence and Evaluation Strategy, which sets out how we meet priority evidence needs, and how these fit with our wider departmental priorities and delivery.

I am proud of DWP’s record in seeking fresh ideas and challenge. Our 2026 ARI will strengthen this, building an exemplar of transparency and collaboration. Together, we can generate the knowledge needed to deliver fair, reliable support and opportunity throughout working lives and into retirement.

Catherine Hutchinson
(Chief Scientific Adviser and Chief Analyst, DWP)

Scope and Purpose

We mobilise our ARI to build awareness, foster conversation, alignment, and innovation around our priority evidence needs. This document provides the foundation for that by setting out the key research questions facing DWP, focusing on where external researchers are well-placed to add value. The ARI are not an exhaustive account of DWP’s analytical interests. In addition to the ARI related directly to the department’s strategic objectives, we are also keen to understand the latest debates and innovations in analytical methods.

The ARI are one component of DWP’s external engagement with evidence and researchers; further detail can be found in our Evidence and Evaluation Strategy. DWP’s Evidence and Evaluation Strategy ensures that the wealth of information about our evidence and external engagement is accessible from one place.

There are areas of shared research interest between DWP and other ARI producers. For example, parts of the skills remit moved to DWP from DfE in September 2025, including responsibility for Skills England, who are publishing their own ARI. To support identification and navigation of these, our ARI will appear on GOV.UK alongside other government departments’ ARI documents and on the ARI database.

Ahead of the next substantive rewrite of our ARI document, we will update the ARI database and this document with new ARI as they emerge. This reflects the evolving nature of our evidence needs.

We welcome engagement from a diverse range of external research institutions. Please get in touch if you:

• are planning or undertaking work that is relevant to our ARI
• would value a conversation to help you align your work with DWP priorities and support its impact
• have relevant evidence or expertise to share
• are interested in learning more about or hosting one of our ARI workshops with external research institutions
• have thoughts on how we can improve our approach to our ARI

This is not an exhaustive list of reasons to engage with DWP about our ARI, but an initial guide. When you contact us, we will connect you to with the people in DWP whose interests and expertise are best aligned with yours.

We cannot respond to speculative requests for funding as the ARI are not an invitation to tender. We anticipate that alignment with our ARI will strengthen the potential for research impact and aid applications to prospective funding bodies and we can provide letters of support as appropriate.

Please direct all contacts to evidence.strategyteam@dwp.gov.uk

Developing our ARI

DWP’s vision and strategic outcomes shape our evidence needs. Our ARI are organised thematically by our four strategic outcomes^{[footnote 1]}, and our service delivery outcome which are:

1. Enable people to get into work and to get on at work, improve skills, and boost employment and productivity.

2. Tackle child poverty and hardship, ensuring financial security for all.

3. Shape the pensions system to serve the interests of savers and pensioners, ensuring decent, secure retirement incomes for all.

4. Providing support to ensure as many disabled people can work as possible and providing financial support to those who cannot.

Our service delivery objective ensures we are well placed to achieve our vision and is to:

5. Deliver high quality, efficient services, ensuring that people are treated with dignity and respect

We have also included questions under the heading ‘further areas of interest’. These questions either don’t have a clear fit with a single strategic objective or reflect a specific methodological approach to inquiry. DWP is keen to understand the latest debates and innovations in analytical methods, particularly where this would support us to build more complete or robust understandings in relation to our ARI.

We have engaged across DWP and externally to develop our ARI, taking a collaborative and iterative approach to agree the questions.

Areas of Research Interest

1. Enable people to get into work, improve skills, support young people and boost employment and productivity

1.1 How can DWP best support people (particularly young people at greatest risk of becoming NEET (not in employment, education or training)) to transition from education into further education, training, or employment?

1.2 How can we capture the wider impacts of being NEET on young people, society and future generations to estimate the long-term value of interventions to reduce the number of NEET?

1.3 How can we best drive economic growth and maximise employment through employment support and/or training, ensuring that all who need help are supported effectively?

1.4 How can we best work with employers and other external stakeholders to address labour market barriers and support good quality work?

1.5 How does the benefit system (including Universal Credit (UC), incentives, working age contributory benefits, conditionality and support) enable/hinder DWP customers to get into and progress in work?

1.6 What are UC customers’ work/training goals and how can DWP align these with the support DWP offers?

1.7 What is the best approach to self-employment under Universal Credit?

1.8 How can we best increase employment for parents on Universal Credit?

1.9 How can DWP continue to develop its delivery of Universal Credit?

1.10 We can observe the frequency and duration of Work Search Reviews, but how can we better understand their quality?

1.11 How can we achieve an optimal balance between tailoring employment support whilst maintaining fairness and consistency?

1.12 How can labour market progression and sustainable work be effectively defined and measured?

1.13 How should in-work progression support be targeted to optimise its effectiveness?

1.14 What are the indicators of good work? Are people in good work?

1.15 What technologies can be used to support people into work, and help them get on in work?

1.16 What will the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) be on the labour market, including for different groups?

1.17 How can DWP administrative data be better used to gain insights on the labour market?

1.18 In what ways have homeworking, hybrid and flexible working arrangements helped or hindered employment for key groups, for example older workers, parents, disabled people, and people living in remote areas?

1.19 What are the expected labour market impacts of emerging trends and challenges (e.g. Artificial Intelligence (AI), adjustment to net zero, demography) and how can we respond to them to ensure we access the benefits and minimise the costs?

1.20 What influences people’s participation in training and how can we utilise the benefit system to incentivise the take-up of training, including to support key growth sectors?

1.21 How can careers advice keep pace with the changing nature of work and new types of jobs to best support customers?

1.22 How can careers advice and employment support best complement each other to improve labour market outcomes?

1.23 Which contextual factors are the strongest moderators of the effectiveness of employment support (e.g. local labour market status)?

1.24 What is effective in terms of prevention? This includes preventing long term absences from work, long-term unemployment and economic inactivity.

1.25 What are the drivers of economic inactivity and what is the relative importance of these on the level of economic inactivity?

1.26 What works to improve outcomes in a context of concurrent localised and national delivery of employment (and combined employment and health) support? And how can we best capture and share learning?

1.27 What is the evidence base for effective joint working arrangements involving support delivered through, and beyond, the benefit system in partnerships involving DWP, the NHS, Department for Education (DfE), local areas, local delivery partners, the voluntary sector and other organisations?

1.28 In what ways do housing circumstances affect the way people move into, remain in, and progress in work? This includes the role played in labour market outcomes by temporary accommodation, housing affordability, poor quality housing, insecure accommodation and the private and social rented sectors.

1.29 What works to support disadvantaged groups into employment? By disadvantage we mean claimants with more complex needs and backgrounds such as, refugees, ex-offenders, care leavers/care experienced and those with experience of substance dependency or homelessness.

1.30 What support do employers need to recruit and retain those from disadvantaged groups and what are the barriers employers face?

1.31 What is the extent of complex and overlapping needs and disadvantage in the UK?

1.32 How do people with neurodiversity experience current employment and health support interventions? How could we make our interventions more inclusive and is it possible to include neurodiverse people in existing provision, or would bespoke support work better?

2. Tackle child poverty and hardship, ensuring financial security for all

2.1 Building on this rapid evidence review, what are the short, medium and long-term costs and impacts of child poverty for children and families in poverty, and for society as a whole? For example, impacts on education, health and future employment outcomes. How does this vary by time spent in poverty?

2.2 What can DWP do to promote well-functioning family systems to optimise cross-government outcomes for parents and their children?

2.3 What policies should be used to tackle the drivers of current and future trends for child poverty?

2.4 To what extent can increasing parental employment and/or supporting parents to progress in work reduce child poverty and how might this vary across different family configurations?

2.5 What is the interaction between social security, employment, and child poverty? Within this, how can social security most effectively reduce child poverty?

2.6 What works at a local and/or regional level to support families in crisis, reduce child poverty and build resilience in communities? How can government work most effectively with others to support delivery of this?

2.7 What is the (micro and macro) economic impact of local-level preventative interventions that build individual financial resilience?

2.8 How do the needs of families with children under 18 vary over the child’s life course, following specific life events, or changes of circumstances? How does this relate to the risk of poverty and associated support needs?

2.9 What factors are driving the continued need for emergency food parcels and what interventions could help to reduce this need?

2.10 How do housing circumstances – including cost, quality, security, energy efficiency, overcrowding and tenure – affect child poverty and its outcomes?

2.11 How can the benefit system best help low income and vulnerable households with their housing costs?

2.12 What is the effectiveness (including value for money) of DWP’s expenditure on housing support, including its impacts on wider policies such as health, education, the labour market and energy efficient homes?

2.13 How effective are policies designed to reduce homelessness and the use of temporary accommodation?

2.14 How effective are child maintenance and associated policies at supporting separated families to have a child maintenance arrangement that is appropriate for them, reducing conflict and helping children and adults achieve better outcomes?

2.15 How can DWP and its partners maximise sustainable compliance with child maintenance arrangements within and outside the statutory scheme?

2.16 How should benefit eligibility differ for different migrant groups by immigration status; time spent in the UK and contributions to the economy e.g. National Insurance Contributions (NICs) paid?

3. Shape the pensions system to serve the interests of savers and pensioners, ensuring decent, secure retirement incomes for all

3.1 What are the implications of demographic trends, the long-term economic outlook, and trends in working/saving behaviour for fiscal sustainability and financial security in later life?

3.2 What are the best ways of measuring pension adequacy and how suitable are the current definitions for various groups?

3.3 What factors are associated with greater financial resilience in later life? And how can retirement outcomes be improved for groups at the greatest risk of under-saving, such as those on low incomes?

3.4 How does financial insecurity during working life impact in later life and retirement? Within this, we are interested in who experiences financial insecurity over the life-course and who should prioritise short-term income over long-term pension saving.

3.5 What are the best ways to encourage engagement and awareness of the State Pension and Pensioner Benefits?

3.6 What are the key factors associated with pensioner poverty and how are these best addressed?

3.7 What factors are associated with take-up of Pensioner Benefits among the eligible population? And what are the social/spillover benefits associated with take up of these benefits (e.g. reduced health/care costs)?

3.8 How effectively are Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution pension markets functioning? How could further reform address market failures and improve outcomes?

3.9 What factors drive consumer engagement in private and workplace pensions? And to what extent does greater/better engagement lead to positive outcomes in retirement or desired behavioural responses?

3.10 How should individuals be supported at, and throughout, retirement when choosing how to access their workplace pension?

3.11 What is the appropriate balance of risk between employers, savers and government in retirement saving?

3.12 How do employers view pension obligations within their overall costs and benefits packages and/or legal obligations? And how are, or will, employers respond to an evolving pensions landscape?

3.13 What are the links between pensions and economic growth?

3.14 What are the implications of greater consolidation in the Defined Contribution and Defined Benefit markets? How does this impact savers/members?

4. Support disabled people to get into work where possible, providing a safety net to those who cannot

4.1 How do changes in public awareness and attitudes towards disability effect metrics such as the disability employment gap?

4.2 What metrics are most effective for understanding disability employment?

4.3 There is a growing body of evidence around the relationship between work and health, including the benefits of good work for health – how can we develop the evidence further, including using new work and health datalinks?

4.4 How does employment support and training need to differ to be effective for disabled people or those with a health condition?

4.5 How do barriers to inclusion impact disabled people’s outcomes; wellbeing, educational attainment, employment, extra costs of disability, care requirements, and use of government services?

4.6 What methodological approaches can be used to understand the value of policies and interventions designed to remove barriers to inclusion for disabled people?

4.7 Which groups of disabled people are supported by the benefit system, and which are not? How do policy choices impact this?

4.8 How does receipt of benefit payments affect disabled people and people with long-term health conditions? What impact does it have on independence, financial security, employment, wellbeing and health? How different are the experiences of disabled people who do not receive these benefits?

4.9 What are the additional costs of having a disability? How do additional costs vary among disabled people?

4.10 How is disability changing over time and what is the role of the benefit system in this change?

4.11 How do changes in disability benefit policy and delivery interact with wider services, such as health, education, housing, local government, the voluntary sector? How can we best understand this from a whole system perspective?

4.12 Which interventions most improve the completeness, source, and timeliness of medical evidence for functional assessments, and how do they affect decision accuracy, appeal rates, and journey times?

4.13 What are the safeguarding impacts of different assessment channels for people with complex needs, and which reasonable adjustments most reduce risk without degrading assessment quality?

4.14 What factors are associated with take-up of Carer’s Allowance among the eligible population? What are the social/spillover benefits associated with take up of this benefit (e.g. reduced health/care costs)?

4.15 How can DWP support carers in their caring roles?

4.16 How can DWP enhance its understanding of the most appropriate measures of independent living?

5. Deliver high quality, efficient services, ensuring that people are treated with dignity and respect

5.1 What are the best ways to design systems and policy to minimise fraud and error (including tackling new forms of fraud and adapting to its increasing propensity), whilst maintaining excellent and accessible services?

5.2 How can DWP improve the effectiveness of claimant access to DWP information to prevent fraud and error in the benefit system?

5.3 How can DWP ensure its communication campaigns enable good claimant understanding of respective roles and responsibilities?

5.4 How can DWP design its systems and communications to encourage claimants to report their changes of circumstances in a timely and accurate way?

5.5 How can the use of technological solutions including machine learning, network analysis and AI be maximised to reduce fraud and error?

5.6 What are the benefits and risks of adopting digital technologies, including AI, in service delivery – and how can their potential be maximised?

5.7 What can DWP learn from other sectors, organisations or nations to drive improved productivity and efficiency in the delivery of modern welfare DWP services?

5.8 What will be the future level and mix of demand for different DWP services through different channels, (digital/online and video, phone, face-to-face), and what level of support will customers need for engaging with DWP online?

5.9 How can DWP effectively expand its delivery network to deliver on its localism agenda, and engage with customers through local communities to achieve better outcomes?

5.10 How can AI-based technologies – e.g. machine learning, predictive analytics, etc. – be applied robustly and ethically to develop claimant personas or segments, to help DWP design services that are more tailored, efficient, and equitable?

5.11 How can we upskill and retrain DWP staff to effectively adapt to and make the most of the technologies we are adopting?

5.12 As DWP continues to grow its digital interactions with claimants and citizens, what are the skills and attributes that customer-facing staff need to deliver in-person support to claimants less able to digitally self-serve?

5.13 How effective is digital transformation in improving operational efficiency and customer experience?

5.14 What are the root causes of complaints and what issues cause customers to be most dissatisfied with DWP?

5.15 How can DWP best learn from serious cases to develop responsive and robust services for those most at risk?

5.16 How can DWP reduce its environmental impact by making sustainability business-as-usual, including in the decisions and behaviours of colleagues and in the way the department delivers services to its customers?

5.17 How can DWP best understand the system-wide environmental impacts of increasing digitisation and AI?

5.18 How can DWP quantify the wider socio-economic benefits of transformed services?

5.19 For functional assessments, which channel (face to face, video, telephony) yields the best balance of customer understanding, perceived fairness, and assessment accuracy – according to customer segment and need?

5.20 What are the most important barriers Mayoral Strategic Authorities and Accountable Bodies face in capability building, which mitigations are most effective, and which require DWP or cross government support?

5.21 Which forms of central support deliver the highest marginal improvement in local capability maturation and outcomes?

5.22 Because of our statutory responsibilities as a government department, we need reliable data for use in automation or AI. How can we achieve this level of reliability or effectively work around it?

5.23 How can we remove the barriers for both our customers and staff to trust our use of AI and data automation?

6. Further areas of interest

6.1 What future analytics solution(s) would enable DWP to harness the large quantities of agent and customer data created by the administrative systems for analysis? For example, operational digital twins?

6.2 How can we utilise digital technologies to better engage citizens in research and to extend and improve the communication of our research findings?

6.3 How can we embed the use of participatory and co-design methods in both policy and service design in ways that are quality assured and enhance outcomes?

6.4 How can we adapt research methodologies to robustly measure the impact of technology, such as AI, given its fast-moving nature?

6.5 How do we protect the integrity of our research and have confidence in the outputs with the growth of digital technologies and the desire to create disinformation?

6.6 How can DWP policies be used to reduce negative environmental impacts and support environmental enhancement?

6.7 How can DWP best develop measures to assess the direct and indirect impact of policymaking on the environment, and on groups that are disproportionately affected by climate change?

6.8 How is climate change affecting vulnerable groups in the UK? What is DWP’s role in supporting these groups?

The 2025 Public Design Evidence Review collated existing evidence for public design as an approach to developing public policies and services. It also identified a need for further rigorous studies of public design in practice, including to understand contextual factors that influence the value public design can or does add. As DWP, we are therefore interested to understand:

6.9 How public design approaches can improve the effectiveness of employment support services, particularly for groups with complex needs or low trust in government?

6.10 How public design approaches can help tailor employment services to local contexts and user journeys, and what impact this has on take-up and outcomes?

6.11 How public design approaches can help government better understand and respond to the lived experiences of families in poverty, especially in relation to service navigation and decision-making?

6.12 What design-led approaches are most effective in surfacing hidden trade-offs or unintended consequences in policy delivery for low-income families?

6.13 How design can be used to co-create more inclusive services for disabled people and carers, and what impact does this have on independence and wellbeing?

6.14 The organisational conditions that support the successful use of design in services for disabled people and carers?

6.15 How public design can be used to improve service resilience and adaptability and organisational learning in the face of complex, evolving challenges?

6.16 What the most effective ways are to embed public design practices in service delivery without displacing existing effective approaches.

6.17 How design-led approaches can be evaluated in terms of their impact on service quality, claimant experience, and policy outcomes?

7. Get in touch

We welcome any questions or feedback on our ARI. Please contact: evidence.strategyteam@dwp.gov.uk

1. Department for Work and Pensions, Main Estimate 2026 to 2027 Select Committee Memorandum, April 2026 ↩