Disabled people in the UK face multiple intersecting challenges. Being disabled impacts many people’s experiences of access to employment, healthcare, education, and other critical services. In addition, when thinking about the future, disabled people will be impacted differently by structural challenges such as climate change and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). To better understand how the needs and experiences of disabled people will evolve over the next 5, 10 and 20 years, in January 2025 the Cabinet Office Disability Unit (DU) commissioned the National Centre for Social Research to carry out a programme of foresight research involving 12 disabled people’s organisations (DPOs).
The resulting report has now been published.
Key findings include the following:
- social – the proportion of the UK population that is disabled is set to continue to grow, with implications for public spending, particularly given the continuation of disabled people’s experiences of barriers (environmental, social and attitudinal)
- technological – technological advances have the potential to improve or further exclude disabled people, and currently more engagement with disabled people is thought to be needed to ensure accessibility
- economic – a number of trends were highlighted as likely to disproportionately impact disabled people’s financial situations
- environmental – existing accessibility issues in the built environment were highlighted, as were the negative and disproportionate impacts on disabled people of climate change and climate mitigation policies which are not disability inclusive
- political – barriers to participation were highlighted as persisting
- values – the need for increased representation and acknowledgement of the intersectional and diverse experiences of disabled people