The Budget in one paragraph
On 28 October 2026, Chancellor John Healey delivered the Autumn Budget. It contained three measures that speak directly to young people: a new scheme to help first-time buyers, more room to test a side hustle without a tax bill, and a rise in the minimum wage. None of them changes anything overnight. All of them reward people who start preparing now. This article explains each measure in plain English, with the figures as announced. It is general information, not financial advice, and some details still need legislation before they become law.
Your First Home: a smaller deposit, with strings attached
Your First Home is a new government scheme for first-time buyers in England, backed by £4.7 billion of government funding over five years. It works like this. You buy a new-build home from a developer signed up to the scheme. You put down a deposit of between 2.5% and 15% of the price. The government lends you 20% of the price through an equity loan. A normal repayment mortgage from a participating lender covers the rest.
An equity loan is different from a normal loan. The government owns a share of your home equal to the loan. When you sell, you repay 20% of the sale price, so if your home rises in value, the amount you repay rises too. If it falls in value, the amount falls. The loan is interest free for the first five years. After that, interest starts at 1.5% in year six and rises to 3% from year seven.
To see how the numbers fit together, take an illustrative home priced at £250,000. A 2.5% deposit is £6,250. The government equity loan of 20% is £50,000. The mortgage covers the remaining £193,750. There are limits. Your household income must be no more than £110,000 outside London, or £140,000 inside London. Price caps apply, set by local authority median prices, with inner London capped at £650,000 and outer London at £500,000. The home must be a new build, bought as your main home, from a participating developer. Existing homes are not eligible, and the scheme covers England only.
The timetable matters. Pre-registration is due to open by the end of December 2026, full applications open in February 2027, and the first loans are expected from April 2027. A new First Time Buyer ISA was also announced, but its details are still being worked through, so we are not quoting figures for it here.
The trading allowance: more room to test an idea
From 6 April 2027, the trading allowance rises from £1,000 to £3,000. The trading allowance is the amount of trading and miscellaneous income you can receive in a year without paying tax on it and without needing to declare it. It covers things like freelance work, selling online, and small services, where the activity amounts to trading.
Here is what that means in practice. Suppose you earn £2,400 in a year from selling designs online alongside your job. Under the old £1,000 allowance, £1,400 of that income sat above the allowance. Under the new £3,000 allowance, the whole £2,400 sits within it. That is the difference between testing an idea and doing paperwork about testing an idea.
A few rules are worth knowing. The allowance applies per person, not per trade, so two side incomes share one £3,000 allowance. It is an alternative to deducting your actual business expenses, not an addition to them: if your expenses are more than £3,000, deducting the real expenses may leave you better off. The allowance cannot create a tax loss, and it does not cover a trade carried on in partnership, or income paid by your employer. It starts on 6 April 2027, so it does not change this tax year. Keep records from day one anyway. Good records are what turn a side hustle into a business a bank or a funder will take seriously.
Wages: the floor rises in April 2027
From 1 April 2027, the National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over rises by 3.9%, from £12.71 to £13.21 an hour. The rate for 18 to 20 year olds rises to £11.27 an hour, and the rate for 16 to 17 year olds and apprentices rises to £8.31 an hour. The Budget document puts the gain at £910 a year in gross pay for a full-time worker on the adult rate.
If you are employed, that is a straightforward pay rise, and it is worth checking your April 2027 payslip to make sure it arrived. If you run a small team, it is a cost to budget for now, not a surprise to meet in April.
Saving: the Cash ISA limit stays at £20,000
Savers got a reprieve. A planned cut to the Cash ISA limit, down to £12,000 for under 65s from April 2027, will not go ahead. The annual Cash ISA limit stays at £20,000 from 6 April 2027, within the overall £20,000 ISA allowance. The government has said amending regulations will be laid to give effect to this, so treat the position as announced rather than already law.
One change does bite: tax on savings interest held outside an ISA rises from 6 April 2027, to 24% at the basic rate, 44% at the higher rate and 49% at the additional rate. If you are saving for a deposit, the order of operations stays the same: build the habit, use tax sheltered saving where you can, and keep the deposit money somewhere you can reach it when the right home appears.
What to do now
First, if a first home is your goal, work out your deposit target under the new scheme and check whether the price caps and income caps fit your area. Second, if you have a side hustle idea, use the months before April 2027 to test it small, keep records, and keep your income and expenses in a separate account so the numbers are clean. Third, if you are employed, note the April 2027 wage rates and check them when they land. Fourth, review your savings: if you hold cash savings outside an ISA, the April 2027 tax rise is a reason to look at whether an ISA suits you. Fifth, ignore anyone selling certainty: measures change as they pass into law.
The Budget will not buy anyone a home or build anyone a business. What it does is lower two barriers that stop young people starting: the size of the deposit, and the tax cost of testing an idea. The people who benefit most will be the ones who use the waiting time well.
Please note: this article is general information about announced Budget measures. It is not financial advice, and it is not a recommendation to buy, borrow or invest. Your circumstances are your own, and a qualified adviser can help you weigh them.
