The transition of the Budgie desktop to Wayland comes with a few teething problems that require a bit of tinkering.
Here’s the first in a series of little workarounds I’ve adopted until these inconveniences are resolved.
Hoping you’ll find them useful.
Open the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy and paste this line to edit the configuration file of labwc Wayland window compositor:
gedit .config/budgie-desktop/labwc/rc.xml
Add this line just below the <keyboard> tag (line 3):
<numlock>on</numlock>
Save and restart.
Note: Even though the numeric keypad is enabled, Lock Keys Indicator applet does not show it.
Pressing a modifier key (Shift, Ctrl, Alt, Alt Gr) will turn on the indicator light.
The issue has been reported on GitHub.