Writing about the cost-of-living crisis, the downsides of summer, the upsides of Artificial Intelligence or in desperate need of some heartening statistics about community spirit? Here is a selection of surveys, reports and studies recently shared via the Press Release Wire for finessing your features.

Want even more data? Send a request to UK PRs who have what you need with the Journalist Enquiry Service.

Work/life (im)balance

If you are someone who Googles ‘next Bank Holiday?’ every few weeks, you clearly value your free time and these stats probably will not include you. According to data from Censuswide, only 40% of workers actually take all of their annual leave. Workers miss out on 7.2 days of leave on average, which is the equivalent of £882.72 each year. With age comes wisdom on balancing work and life properly, however – 55+ year-olds lose six days on average compared to the 7.4 days 16-to-24-year-olds miss. Well, is it wisdom? Or pressure from workplaces? Read more here.

Four in 10 people facing retirement believe they will need to work beyond state pension age to get by, finds new research from Renovo. Causing the worry – the cost-of-living crisis, with 80% citing it as a key concern, and 56% feeling that their savings and pension will not be enough to last them through their retirement years. Worries about retirement also go beyond finance – other issues cited included physical health (50%), productiveness (40%), being lonely (39%) and its potential impact on relationships (17%). Read more here.

Cruel summer

Dangerously high heats, risk of serious sun burn and then sudden rainstorms – summer in the UK is filled with hazards, but here are some more. National Claims has created a top ten list of dangers to beware of, using data from over 2,000 personal injury claims made over the last year. Be careful now: flip-flops cause over 200,000 accidents each year, sunglasses can block your vision and oversized hats are not a suitable replacement for sunscreen. Read more – and consider the benefits of winter – here.

When live chat works

Calls to the National Domestic Abuse Helpline rose by 65% between April and June in 2020 compared to the first three months of that year – to tackle this, Suffolk police teamed up with Futr to run a pilot live chat solution and the results are in. During the month-long pilot scheme, 72.5% of the interactions were with new users, with 27.5% being returning callers. The average length of interactions were 40 minutes, showing comfortable in-depth conversations for callers with the service. Read more about how the scheme is working here.    

Law and order

Just one of the awful side-effects of the global pandemic has been the growth of fraud, with scammers quick to prey on the uncertainty of the times. UK Finance’s recent report ‘Fraud the Facts’ found that fraud losses in the UK in 2021 reached a massive £1.31 billion. Worst types of fraud? The unauthorised debit and credit card variety, netting scammers £524.5 million last year. The biggest slice of that number (79%) was taken by the use of stolen card details to make purchases online, over the phone or by mail. Stay safe, check out the rest of the stats here.   

Let us finish on some nice news – over half of Brits want to make meaningful difference in their communities, according to a new report by community-based retailer SPAR. 61% of people would describe themselves as happy living in their community (68% for communities in Wales), while 31% said they were involved in activities for local causes, including improving the area for others. A third of us have pitched in more since the start of COVID-19, with 28% saying their community had grown closer. For what most makes a neighbourhood great, according to the research: nice neighbours (28%), a sense of belonging (22%) and free green spaces to enjoy (11%). Read more here.

We provide these as a jumping-off point for your own research and you should perform your own checks on any of these stories – a few tips in this post. If you’d like to source experts, further information or case studies for any of these topics or something else you’re working on, head to the (free) Journalist Enquiry Service to save hours of research and expand your network of sources.