UK ISA Trends
Last updated: · PlainISA
UK ISA wrapper-mix shift 2010 → 2022
Share of new ISA subscriptions by wrapper type, % of total.
UK ISA subscriber count 2014 → 2022
Total UK adult ISA subscribers per tax year.
Lifetime ISA cumulative accounts 2017 → 2022
Total LISA accounts opened (thousands). Slow but steady adoption since 2017 launch.
Subscription volume over time
HMRC published statistics show approximately 12.2 million UK adults subscribed to ISAs in the 2022-23 tax year (the most recent fully reconciled vintage), down from a peak around 14 million in 2014-15. The decline reflects the introduction of the Personal Savings Allowance in April 2016, which made the basic Cash ISA less attractive to basic-rate taxpayers earning under £1,000 of bank interest annually.
Total funds subscribed across all wrappers reached approximately £71.6 billion in 2022-23, of which £28.4 billion went into Cash ISAs and £33.1 billion into Stocks & Shares ISAs.
Wrapper-mix shift toward S&S ISA
The Stocks & Shares ISA has gradually overtaken the Cash ISA in subscription value. In 2010-11 Cash ISAs received roughly 65% of new subscriptions; by 2022-23 the share had fallen to approximately 46%, with S&S ISAs taking the larger share. The transition reflects both the Personal Savings Allowance changing the appeal of Cash ISAs and the long-running low interest rate environment between 2008-2022.
Cash ISA subscriptions are concentrated in older age groups, savers over 65 hold approximately 38% of total Cash ISA funds while representing under 19% of the UK adult population. S&S ISA subscriptions skew younger and higher-income.
Lifetime ISA uptake
The Lifetime ISA, launched in April 2017, has seen steady growth in subscriber numbers but remains a niche wrapper. HMRC data shows approximately 600,000 LISA accounts opened across the 2017-2023 period, with annual subscriptions averaging around £2,500 per account, meaningfully below the £4,000 cap.
The £450,000 property value cap has constrained LISA adoption in high-cost regions (notably London and the South East). Industry advocacy groups have requested a cap increase or regional differentiation, but no policy change has been announced in Finance Acts since 2017.
Innovative Finance ISA decline
The IFISA peaked around 2018-19 with approximately £400 million of annual subscriptions, but several high-profile P2P platform failures (Lendy 2019, FundingSecure 2019, Collateral 2018) prompted FCA tightening of marketing rules. Annual IFISA subscriptions have since fallen to under £200 million, with the wrapper now representing less than 0.5% of total ISA funds.
Looking ahead: 2024 multiple-ISA rule
The 6 April 2024 rule change permitting multiple ISAs of the same type within a single tax year is expected to drive subscription dispersion across providers, particularly in the Cash ISA segment where rate-shopping is common. HMRC has not yet published 2024-25 reconciled statistics; the full impact will be visible in the 2025-26 publication cycle.
Industry expectation is that headline subscription totals will remain broadly stable, but the average per-account balance will decline as savers split capital across two or more providers per year.
Sources
- HMRC, Individual Savings Account Statistics
- HMRC, Lifetime ISA Statistics
- Financial Conduct Authority, Financial Services Data