Madeleine Ross
Madeleine Ross is a money reporter at The Telegraph, focusing on how financial decisions, products and policies affect ordinary people's lives and wallets. Her coverage stands out for treating money stories as everyday dilemmas — from landlords’ rules and renters’ rights to savings rates and unreliable banking apps — rather than abstract market moves. She joined The Telegraph in 2023 as part of its Money team and co-authors its award‑winning How To Become A Millionaire newsletter.
Housing costs, landlords and renters' rights
Ross frequently reports on the financial tensions between landlords and tenants, explaining what new rules mean for deposits, rent increases and security of tenure. In one piece she argued that the proposed Renters’ Rights Bill, though unpopular with landlords, deserves support, framing it as a necessary rebalancing of power in the rental market. Her coverage of plans to ban landlords from holding tenants’ deposits in their own bank accounts similarly focuses on practical consequences for both sides — how compliance would work, where money is held, and what protections tenants gain.
Beyond the private rental sector, she has written on development threats to traditional horse‑racing areas and the broader housing impact of large‑scale building projects described by locals as a “horror story”. She has also explored property taxes at the top end of the market, including stamp duty bills running into tens of thousands of pounds on high‑profile family homes. Across these stories she connects planning decisions and tax rules back to the people who pay them, using residents’ voices and reader polls to show where public sentiment sits.
Savings, banking glitches and fintech reliability
Savings products and the reliability of modern investment platforms are another recurring strand in her work. She has reported on customers losing out on thousands of pounds when a trading outage blocked activity on a popular investment platform, spelling out both the technical failure and the personal financial losses. In coverage of Revolut, she described closing her own account, using a first‑person narrative about student budgeting to test whether trendy fintech tools genuinely serve everyday users.
She writes about falling savings rates and the struggle to achieve meaningful returns, framing rate changes in terms of how much real‑world income people stand to lose or gain. Her emphasis in these pieces is on consumer protection and clarity: she breaks down complex product features and platform risks into simple explanations of what can go wrong and what readers might want to watch for.
Family money and generational finance
Ross often examines how families share money across generations, and the emotional strings attached to those transfers. In one widely shared column she argued that parents who are not willing to give cash to adult children without conditions should simply keep their money, using that line to open a broader discussion of gifts, control and expectations. She ties these themes to housing and life‑stage milestones, looking at how parental contributions shape home purchases and financial independence.
Her approach is direct and unsentimental, treating generous gifts and withheld support alike as financial choices with long‑term consequences rather than purely private family matters. That focus on the practical and psychological sides of family finance complements her reporting on landlords and lenders, building a consistent picture of how power and money move between institutions and individuals.
Economic data, labour market and wealth‑building guidance
Alongside household‑level stories, she comments on labour‑market data, such as unemployment figures showing more than five per cent of the population out of work over a given period. She links those numbers back to real incomes, job security and the pressure they place on savings and borrowing, keeping macroeconomic trends anchored in personal finance. Her wealth‑building work through The Telegraph’s How To Become A Millionaire newsletter focuses on clear, step‑by‑step guidance aimed at readers who want to grow their assets over time, rather than chase quick wins.
The newsletter’s format lets her combine case studies, practical tips and simple calculations, giving continuity to themes that surface in her daily reporting on housing, savings and family money. Before joining The Telegraph she reported for another major newspaper group, working across its UK and Irish titles, experience that informs the blend of hard data, human stories and policy detail in her current money coverage.
4 more finance journalists.
Abba Ihonde
Abba Ihonde is a content writer for Guardian Digital at The Guardian whose beat sits where crypto, fintech and mainstream finance meet. He focuses on how cryptocurrencies, trading platforms and digital tools are reshaping business and finance, especially through regulation, crypto policy and their impact on financial services. His explainer pieces follow the practical realities of traders, importers and growing businesses, tracking everyday crypto use in cross-border trade and the turn to stablecoins. He reports on retail trading platforms and market education, drawing on experience in cryptocurrency futures trading and earlier SEO analysis and editing roles to keep finance coverage clear and structured. Abba also writes on business visibility in the digital economy, policy and tax technology, and takes on broader news and lifestyle assignments, from security incidents to celebrity weddings.
Adam Clark
Adam Clark links fast-moving moves in global markets with clear, stock-focused takeaways for investors, combining breaking news with thematic analysis across equities and commodities. He is a reporter at Barron's, covering breaking news and markets, a role he took on in 2022 after five years with Dow Jones Newswires. His beat is how individual stocks, sectors and major indices react to shifts in the economy, monetary policy and corporate strategy, and what those moves mean for portfolios. He covers real-time moves in leading stocks and indices, high-profile names such as Alphabet and Newmont, and themes like technology volatility and gold market resets. He works in fast-turn news and longer market features, drawing on experience as reporter, editor and Insight columnist across print and digital platforms linked to Dow Jones brands.
Alasdair Ferguson
Alasdair Ferguson is a multimedia journalist at The National whose finance reporting is defined by a strong focus on culture, heritage and history. He uses archives, museums and cultural institutions to tell contemporary stories, linking public money and policy to how Scotland understands its past. He covers finance, culture, heritage, sport, arts and civic campaigns, often showing how decisions and events affect daily life and national identity. His work includes pieces on historic conflicts, museum photo releases, lost music, football history, large-scale supporter travel, arts festivals, television industry shifts and grassroots independence campaigns. He reports through news, features and multimedia, including podcast and video interviews. Across formats, he relies on concrete historical material, scholarly research and institutional sources to foreground why discoveries and campaigns matter now.
Alec Whitaker
Alec Whitaker is a senior court reporter for The Westmorland Gazette and also writes for The Mail. He stands out for reporting criminal cases in a tight, court-led way that links offences to fines, bans, compensation and other legal outcomes. His core beat is magistrates’ and crown court hearings, with regular coverage of theft, drugs, motoring offences, harassment, stalking and robbery. He reports on how the justice system turns behaviour into sentences and financial penalties, from short theft cases to serious drug charges. His pieces give the charge, the hearing, the pleas and the final order in plain terms. He also covers inquests and other court proceedings, and his work has included reporting for The Mail, The Westmorland Gazette and the North West Evening Mail.