The rise of the prenup – and why so many of us are now getting one

Published

3 months ago

June 2, 2025

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The number of couples deciding to get a prenup is increasing, with one law firm telling Money it has seen requests double in the last year.

It is estimated that more than 20% of all married couples in the country have signed one of these agreements.

So, what are they, and why are so many of us opting for one? The Money team took a look…

A quick rundown of what a prenup is

A prenup is a legal arrangement made by a couple before they marry or enter a civil partnership, which sets out plans for how their assets should be divided if they divorce or have their civil partnership dissolved.

They are not legally binding, but thanks to a landmark ruling in 2010, courts are expected to uphold prenups that have been entered into freely.

However, courts are still able to make decisions on a case-by-case basis, meaning prenups that appear to have been entered under pressure or written up particularly unfairly might not be given as much weight.

Four reasons why they have become more popular

The landmark ruling

Prenups used to be associated with the ultra wealthy and famous, but after the Radmacher v Granatino ruling, people became more aware of them, Charlotte Lanning from Edward’s Family Law told Money.

After that decision, prenups agreed by celebrity couples made headlines across the country, making them appear “glitzy” and desirable, she said.

“When I was first starting out, I would do prenups on the odd occasion, whereas now we always have a couple on the go each,” the associate solicitor said.

Getting married later

While the ruling was a factor, Lanning thinks the more recent increase in prenups has been driven by changes in society. People are getting married later and are less worried about looking unromantic.

“The fact that people are getting married a lot later in life… means there is more to argue over,” Lanning said, explaining that the older people are, the more likely they are to own businesses, properties or other assets.

The bank of mum and dad

A lot of her clients were also relying more on the “bank of mum and dad” to fund big purchases, such as the deposit on a first home.

Lanning said this made wealth inequities more obvious, putting prenups at the “forefront of people’s minds” before they get married.

Changing attitudes

The Marriage Foundation thinktank has been looking at prenups for years, and its founder and former judge Sir Paul Coleridge told Money that changing attitudes were a big driver in the uptick.

“The old Victorian view was that it was wrong to have people talking about what should happen when a marriage broke down when the clear intention was to stay married for life,” he said.

“I’m a convert. I felt quite strongly that it was wrong to start discussing divorce before marriage, but I have completely changed my mind.

“People do quite often want to have a discussion about what should happen in the worst case.”

He explained that despite the stereotype of a rich man paying off a younger, poorer wife, that was no longer the case either.

“You find people getting married now are very established financially and have made a great deal of money on their own, and this is men and women,” he said.

“It’s certainly not only applicable to men paying women. Nowadays, it’s very frequent to be the other way around.”

Who is signing them?

Lanning said a typical client was often a high net worth individual, but it was becoming more common for young people who are in line to receive a large inheritance to get a prenup.

“A lot of the ones I have done recently have been quite interesting because it is more to do with future inheritance,” she said.

“One of the parties that is getting married won’t necessarily have the money yet, but the prenup is to make sure that if they do receive it during the marriage, that it is protected.”

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She explained that parents can be the driving force of these agreements, with many wanting to make sure their child keeps hold of their inheritance.

Then there are divorcees. Lanning said people who used her firm for their divorce proceedings will return when they’re considering getting married for a second time.

“We see it often with second marriages, particularly if the parties have children from a previous marriage or relationship. Obviously, the older you are, the more money you’ve got because you’ve had longer to build it up.”

Sir Paul stressed that prenups were not necessary for every couple, so people should consider them carefully before signing one.

What do they include?

A prenup can cover a range of topics, with Sir Paul saying he has seen some in the US that set out bizarre requirements such as the number of times a couple must have sex.

Typically, it will cover property, savings, inheritance, stocks and shares, income, business interests, pension pots, and premium bonds.

In the UK, a prenup cannot include child custody arrangements, personal matters, illegal activities, or lifestyle issues.

When writing up a prenup, Lanning said property was the most common point of contention.

“It might specify that a home becomes joint property or it will stay separate,” she said.

“When there’s not a lot of money involved, the court will normally be looking at what the weaker financial party needs in order to rehouse.

“You will quite often have a clause in there that says after a certain number of years, you can have a specific amount to rehouse, or you can have a property in a certain area, with a set number of bedrooms.

“It just provides a bit of structure to try to temper down people’s needs,” she explained.

“There is a broad spectrum of what you can assert. The whole point of it is to try to stop arguments later down the line.”

How long do they take and how much do they cost?

The simple answer to both questions is that it completely depends on how complex the agreement is.

Lanning said the general rule is that a prenup should be signed 28 days before a couple gets married.

She said it’s “absolutely great” if people contact a solicitor about a prenup around six months before their wedding.

“That way, you can get the advice on what they do, what the process is, and then a lot of couples discuss it among themselves to decide what they want to achieve. Then they come with their practical realities, and we basically make it legal,” she said.

“Any earlier and you risk the financial disclosure then being out of date, which doesn’t help.”

Sir Paul said that when dealing with a high net worth family, the whole process could cost upwards of £10,000.

But in typical cases, people should be thinking “in terms of thousands” for the final cost.

How should you handle having the prenup conversation?

While people are less likely to find conversations around prenups uncomfortable nowadays, talking about money can still be difficult.

Amy Harris, legal director at advisory firm Brabners Personal, said having a chat about prenups tends to be easier when the issue is family money or inherited wealth.

“A prenup is sometimes a condition of them receiving any gifts or inheritance at all; it therefore comes across less personal between the couple themselves,” she said.

“We find that having full and frank financial discussions at the start of marriage can be enlightening and a good basis upon which to start their future together – with openness and transparency and a commitment to dealing with separation as amicably as possible.

“It is also important to remember that these agreements often work both ways in terms of any provisions that protect the prior assets of one party, which can also protect the prior assets of the other.”

UK

The latest migration stats are going in the wrong direction – and the argument might get more vicious

Published

1 hour ago

August 21, 2025

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The latest migration stats are going in the wrong direction - and the argument might get more vicious

The UK government won’t find much in the latest dump of migration data to back up its claim that it is restoring order to a broken asylum system.

In a competitive field, perhaps the most damaging stat is the rising number of small boat crossings – up 38% on 12 months previously and close to the peaks of 2023.

That has helped push up asylum applications to record levels, which in turn has led to a rise in the use of hotel accommodation.

Politics live: Read about the latest migration stats

Deportations are up, but more than half of the total figure is foreign national offenders rather than failed asylum seekers.

The backlog for initial decisions is coming down.

But the approval rate for those applying for asylum after arriving on a small boat is still hovering around the 65% mark.

Another bottleneck is also forming as more people appeal their initial rejections – and require accommodation while they wait for an outcome.

This all helps explain why people are still taking the risk of crossing the channel in the first place.

It’s still highly likely that if you get to the UK, you’ll be able to stay.

The row over the use of hotels is a product of this underlying problem.

And if you thought that argument was vicious, just wait for the one that could follow if asylum seekers start to be moved out of hotels and into houses and flats in areas that already have a shortage of homes.

It’s why the only real endgame for the government is to find a way to stop people coming in the first place.

Increased numbers of returns, including through the UK-France deal, could provide some deterrent.

Beefed-up action to dismantle smuggling gangs and reforms to the time it takes for appeals to be heard will help too.

So far though, all the figures that count are going in the wrong direction.

What’s more, there’s some evidence that the data is looking particularly painful for Labour in some of its most vulnerable areas.

A look down the list of councils with relatively high numbers of asylum seekers reveals several key election battlegrounds in the Midlands and North.

These are regions where Reform is already campaigning hard.

The stakes are high, and as it stands the government is being found wanting.

UK

Inequalities in GCSE results stubbornly persistent – here’s what the data tells us

Published

4 hours ago

August 21, 2025

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Inequalities in GCSE results stubbornly persistent - here's what the data tells us

As over one million students receive their GCSE results, Sky News has found gender and factors linked to deprivation remain troubling predictors of students’ performance.

Overall GCSE grades are relatively consistent with last year’s results, indicating stability has returned following the end of pandemic grading.

The compulsory courses, Level 2 English and Mathematics, continue to be a hurdle for many GCSE students – with Thursday’s results showing the highest failure rates for the two subjects in a decade.

Yet, while overall grades are stable, so too are key attainment gaps that experts say point to deprivation.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson denounced attainment gaps for white working-class children in an article for The Telegraph.

“It’s appalling, and I won’t stand by and watch those numbers continue to grow,” Ms Phillipson wrote. “It’s not just the life chances of those children that are being damaged – it’s also the health of our society as a whole.”

While the data does not share deprivation status or ethnicity of students, other strongly correlated factors such as English region and school type show stark inequalities.

Some 48.1% of GCSE exams sat at fee-paying schools in England received grades of 7 or above, compared with 18.2% at non-selective state schools.

Fiona Spellman, CEO of education charity SHINE, said, “The primary difference that drives the attainment gap between those who attend independent schools and those who don’t really comes from the circumstances in those children’s lives.”

Regional inequalities across England also remain significant. In London, 28.4% of GCSE exams were awarded a grade 7 or higher compared with just 17.8% of exams in the North East of England.

But even students in London were outperformed by Northern Ireland, where 31.6% of GCSE students received a 7 or above.

“Deprivation is a major driver of the gap we see between the different regions and in terms of the attainment children achieve in all phases of education,” said Ms Spellman.

This year’s cohort had both a disrupted primary and secondary school experience due to the pandemic – a factor that may be influencing some of these inequality gaps.

“We know that the pandemic affected all children, but we know that it didn’t affect all children equally,” added Ms Spellman. “The legacy of COVID is still very much still alive today and how that had a disproportionate effect on the children who most need support is still working its way through.”

Gender gap stubbornly persistent

One of the clearest divides in the results – and not mentioned by the education secretary – is gaps based on gender.

Girls continue to receive a greater proportion of the top grades compared with boys. Among students receiving a 7/A or above, 55.8% were girls while 44.2% were boys.

In England, the gap is wider when looking just at 16-year-old students taking 7 or more GCSEs. 60.7% of those in this cohort receiving top grades were girls while 39.3% were boys.

But, Jill Duffy, the chair of one of the main qualifications body, the OCR, pointed out the overall gender gap this year is the narrowest since 2000.

However, Claire Thomson and Cath Jadhav, both board members of the Joint Council for Qualifications alongside Ms Duffy, cautioned that the decrease in the gender gap was too small to confirm any concrete trend.

“The change is relatively small, at fractions of percentage points, so there will be lots of individual factors which affect that,” said Ms Jadhav.

Certain subjects showed large gender imbalances between boys and girls.

Girls were the most overrepresented in home economics, followed by performing/expressive arts, health & social care, hospitality, and social science subjects.

In contrast, boys were disproportionately more likely to take other technology, construction, engineering, computing, and economics.

Working-class boys facing hurdles

So, is Ms Phillipson right to highlight white working-class children as falling behind? And should we be more concerned about white working-class boys in particular?

While the data does not include sufficient detail on how these inequalities stack on each other, data published by the Department for Education (DfE) based on last year’s results suggest white working-class boys are among the most disadvantaged in education.

Among all children eligible for free school meals, White British boys were much less likely to receive a grade of 4 – a pass – or above on their GCSEs.

Black Caribbean and mixed white/black Caribbean boys on free school meals had similarly poor pass rates.

“It’s not all boys. And it’s not all white working-class boys,” said David Spendlove, professor at the University of Manchester’s Institute for Education. But, “boys top all of those key indicators: likely to be diagnosed with special needs, likely to be excluded from school.”

“The system is stacked against them and at every single hurdle they are going to face challenges which mount increasingly over time,” said Prof Spendlove.

Beyond A-levels

What’s next for students receiving results on Thursday?

According to DfE’s 2024 numbers, just over 40% of 16-year-olds started an A-level course the following year.

More than 20% started other Level 3 qualifications, such as T-levels or BTECs. Around 3.5% started apprenticeships.

However, 6.2% were classified as not in education, employment, or training (“NEET”).

Simon Ashworth, deputy CEO and head of policy for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said, “The number of young people who are not in education, employment or training has got worse, not better.”

“We’re nearly to a million young people who are NEET,” he said. “That is a worry.”

Boys between the ages of 16 and 18 are more likely than their female counterparts to have NEET status, DfE data reveals.

Furthermore, individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds “tend to be the young people who will be closest to the job market or the risk of becoming NEET once they leave education,” shared Mr Ashworth.

Mr Ashworth also added that some young people who pursue apprenticeships fail to complete them because they struggle to pass mandatory Level 2 Mathematics.

Students who receive lower-than-desired results on Thursday, however, should stay optimistic that many doors remain open to them.

This year saw a 12.1% rise in students 17 or older resitting exams this year.

SHINE’s Dr Helen Rafferty said that the resit rate is likely due to the pandemic as “many students have come to the end of their secondary school journey having had the most chaotic and disrupted educational journey that you can imagine.”

Nonetheless, Ms Rafferty said, “I do think it’s encouraging that so many students are choosing to move on to an educational pathway which still provides them with that opportunity to get their English and maths results.”

UK

Lucy Connolly: Councillor’s wife jailed for inciting racial hatred on X after Southport murders released

Published

4 hours ago

August 21, 2025

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Lucy Connolly: Councillor's wife jailed for inciting racial hatred on X after Southport murders released

A Northampton childminder who was jailed for inciting racial hatred after the Southport murders has been released from prison.

Lucy Connolly, the wife of Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly, was handed a 31-month sentence in October last year after she admitted publishing and distributing “threatening or abusive” written material on the X social media site.

In an apparent reference to asylum seekers staying in UK hotels, Connolly posted on the day of the murder of three girls in Southport on 29 July last year: “Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f****** hotels full of the bastards for all I care… if that makes me racist so be it.”

The mother-of-three, who was working as a childminder at the time, had shared the post after false rumours circulated online that the Southport murderer was an asylum seeker. He was later named as UK-born teenager Axel Rudakubana.

Connolly’s post was viewed 310,000 times in three-and-a-half hours before she deleted it.

Her release means she has served nine months of a 31-month sentence.

Her sentence which was handed down at Birmingham Crown Court has been criticised as being too harsh and some argued she should not have been jailed as she was exercising freedom of speech.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch challenged Lucy Connolly’s charges, saying that “protecting people from words should not be given greater weight in law than public safety”.

“If the law does this, then the law itself is broken – and it’s time Parliament looked again at the Public Order Act,” she said in a post on X on Thursday.

The Tory leader said: “Lucy Connolly finally returns home to her family today. At last.

“Her punishment was harsher than the sentences handed down for bricks thrown at police or actual rioting.

“At that time, after Southport, Keir Starmer branded all protesters ‘far-right’ and called for ‘fast-track prosecutions’.

“Days later, Lucy was charged with stirring up racial hatred – an offence that doesn’t even require intent to incite violence. Why exactly did the Attorney General think that was in the public interest?”

Rupert Lowe, who was an MP for Reform at the time, described her as a “political prisoner” in a Facebook post and said “jailing a young mother over a social media post is not fair play”.

However, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer defended the sentencing earlier this year, addressing Connolly’s case in May after her Court of Appeal application against her jail term was dismissed.

Asked during Prime Minister’s Questions whether her imprisonment was an “efficient or fair use” of prison, Sir Keir said: “Sentencing is a matter for our courts, and I celebrate the fact that we have independent courts in this country.

“I am strongly in favour of free speech, we’ve had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely.

“But I am equally against incitement to violence against other people. I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.”

Lord Young of Acton, founder and director of the Free Speech Union, said: “The fact that Lucy Connolly has spent more than a year in prison for a single tweet that she quickly deleted and apologised for is a national scandal, particularly when Labour MPs, councillors and anti-racism campaigners who’ve said and done much worse have avoided jail.

“The same latitude they enjoyed should have been granted to Lucy.”