The Maths Horizons Project is an independent, rapid review of the maths curriculum in England. As part of Public First’s work as the secretariat for this project, we conducted polling of parents, students, employers, and working adults, and found that:

• Despite negative press, maths is seen by most students and parents as enjoyable, as well as valuable
• There is a high demand for maths skills among employers which is mostly being met, though frontier tech companies project increased demand in future
• The competencies most valued by employers (general arithmetic, use of data, critical thinking, and estimation of values) are also the ones in which students are most confident

We have now released the Interim Report, which reflects on our learnings so far, and starts to outline what our final report will include, to be released in April 2025. You can read the full interim report here.

Public First conducted four anonymous online polls of 2,154 students, 2,065 parents, 2,224 employers, and 2,033 working adults. Fieldwork ran from 6th – 16th December 2024. All results are weighted using Iterative Proportional Fitting, or ‘Raking.’ Where applicable, the results are weighted by age, gender, region, and social grade to Nationally Representative Proportions.

Public First is a member of the BPC and abides by its rules. For more information, please contact the Public First polling team: polling@publicfirst.co.uk

Download student polling tables here.

Download parent polling tables here.

Download employer polling tables here.

Download working adult polling tables here.