Bounceless
2026 starts, not with a bang, but a whimper.
Welcome to the latest update for paid Slow Futures subscribers. Below we take you through the headlines from Trajectory’s latest Optimism Index and what it means for confidence and spending over the next few months.
Optimism Index Headlines
It’s an inauspicious start. We have occasionally seen an optimism bounce at the start of the year – new year, new you and all that – but no such positivity this time. We are bounceless.
Some context: a good deal of the negativity this month is seasonal, as it’s no surprise to see spending expectations dropping in January after Christmas festivities. It’s also easy to feel downbeat when experiencing those typical January sensations: grim weather, credit card bills landing, slumping back to work, the President of the US threatening to invade another NATO member.
There’s a good chance that geopolitics is having an outsize impact on the national mood this month. The prevailing emotion UK consumers feel about the wider world is ‘worry’ and more than one in eight now list national security as one of their top three concerns (a few years ago, it was 1 in 20). Also rising in our monthly issues index: unemployment and immigration. Falling: virtually everything else.
What’s frustrating for businesses is that this is overshadowing the kind of positive economic news that might typically put a spring in consumers’ steps – inflation peaking, interest rates falling. This month (although after our fieldwork period) we also got news that the economy grew much more strongly than expected in November and that NHS waiting lists are starting to meaningfully tumble.
But those kinds of metrics aren’t being seen, let alone felt. The cost of living remains the leading concern and a third of people expect the UK economy to shrink this year. While those kinds of sentiments dominate, Optimism will remain low.
There’s also a couple of wider sentiments that suggest that things could get worse before they get better. For a couple of years, Optimism has been prevented from falling further by the remarkable buoyancy of a few groups - Londoners, Millennials and men. In all cases it seems like these bubbles are deflating.
We could take this as good news - it’s not that the overall mood is declining, it’s just that the few optimistic people are coming down to everyone else’s level. On the other hand, if you pull out the green shoots, the ground will stay browner for longer.
Below we explore…
Overall levels of Optimism and consumer confidence
Spending expectations for the next few months
New data on what the public expect for 2026 (spoiler alert: the worst).
So, let’s take a look at this month’s data…
