As of June 2025, the average score for how happy people felt in the UK was 7.1 out of ten, people aged 70 and over reporting an average score of 7.7, the highest among the provided demographics.

The average for 2024 based on 138 countries was 5.56 points. The highest value was in Finland: 7.74 points and the lowest value was in Afghanistan: 1.72 points. The indicator is available from 2013 to 2024. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

This statistic displays the results of survey where dentists working in private practice in the United Kingdom were asked about their happiness levels compared to when they were working in the NHS across different areas of their working life in 2018. According to the results, ** percent of respondents are very happy with the level of care they can provide to their patients compared to when they worked in the NHS.

Annual estimates of life satisfaction, feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile, happiness and anxiety in the UK, by national, country, regional, county, local and unitary authority level and personal characteristics including analysis on the characteristics that are most likely to impact personal well-being.

In the United Kingdom, happiness linked to the working environment varied greatly among NHS and Private dentists. In 2019, most private dentists were happy with their work environment, whereas very few dentists working predominantly for the NHS were satisfied. For instance, ** percent of private dentists declared to have enough time to manage patient expectations for only * percent of NHS dentists. NHS dentists were significantly unhappy with the level of care they could provide and the stress of carrying out their work.

Estimates of life satisfaction, feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile, happiness and anxiety at the UK, country, regional, county, local and unitary authority level.

According to a survey conducted among nearly ** thousand students in the United Kingdom in 2019, the most important factors influencing how happy they are in their student housing are the location, the option to live in the property for more than one year, and the number of bedrooms. A little over one ***** of respondents (** percent) chose cost. On the other hand, in terms of factors influencing the choice of property, good value for money proved to be the most important.

Non-seasonally adjusted quarterly estimates of life satisfaction, feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile, happiness and anxiety in the UK.

Standard deviation of responses for 'Happy Yesterday' in the First ONS Annual Experimental Subjective Wellbeing survey.

The Office for National Statistics has included the four subjective well-being questions below on the Annual Population Survey (APS), the largest of their household surveys.

• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
• Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?
• Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
• Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?

This dataset presents results from the third of these questions, "Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?". Respondents answer these questions on an 11 point scale from 0 to 10 where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely’. The well-being questions were asked of adults aged 16 and older.

Well-being estimates for each unitary authority or county are derived using data from those respondents who live in that place. Responses are weighted to the estimated population of adults (aged 16 and older) as at end of September 2011.

The data cabinet also makes available the proportion of people in each county and unitary authority that answer with ‘low wellbeing’ values. For the ‘happy yesterday’ question answers in the range 0-6 are taken to be low wellbeing.

This dataset contains the standard deviation of the responses, alongside the corresponding sample size.

The ONS survey covers the whole of the UK, but this dataset only includes results for counties and unitary authorities in England, for consistency with other statistics available at this website.

At this stage the estimates are considered ‘experimental statistics’, published at an early stage to involve users in their development and to allow feedback. Feedback can be provided to the ONS via this email address.

The APS is a continuous household survey administered by the Office for National Statistics. It covers the UK, with the chief aim of providing between-census estimates of key social and labour market variables at a local area level. Apart from employment and unemployment, the topics covered in the survey include housing, ethnicity, religion, health and education. When a household is surveyed all adults (aged 16+) are asked the four subjective well-being questions.

The 12 month Subjective Well-being APS dataset is a sub-set of the general APS as the well-being questions are only asked of persons aged 16 and above, who gave a personal interview and proxy answers are not accepted. This reduces the size of the achieved sample to approximately 120,000 adult respondents in England.

The original data is available from the ONS website.

Detailed information on the APS and the Subjective Wellbeing dataset is available here.

As well as collecting data on well-being, the Office for National Statistics has published widely on the topic of wellbeing. Papers and further information can be found here.

Percentage of responses in range 0-6 out of 10 (corresponding to 'low wellbeing') for 'Happy Yesterday' in the First ONS Annual Experimental Subjective Wellbeing survey.

The Office for National Statistics has included the four subjective well-being questions below on the Annual Population Survey (APS), the largest of their household surveys.

• Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?
• Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?
• Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
• Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?

This dataset presents results from the third of these questions, "Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?" Respondents answer these questions on an 11 point scale from 0 to 10 where 0 is ‘not at all’ and 10 is ‘completely’. The well-being questions were asked of adults aged 16 and older.

Well-being estimates for each unitary authority or county are derived using data from those respondents who live in that place. Responses are weighted to the estimated population of adults (aged 16 and older) as at end of September 2011.

The data cabinet also makes available the proportion of people in each county and unitary authority that answer with ‘low wellbeing’ values. For the ‘happy yesterday’ question answers in the range 0-6 are taken to be low wellbeing.

This dataset contains the percentage of responses in the range 0-6. It also contains the standard error, the sample size and lower and upper confidence limits at the 95% level.

The ONS survey covers the whole of the UK, but this dataset only includes results for counties and unitary authorities in England, for consistency with other statistics available at this website.

At this stage the estimates are considered ‘experimental statistics’, published at an early stage to involve users in their development and to allow feedback. Feedback can be provided to the ONS via this email address.

The APS is a continuous household survey administered by the Office for National Statistics. It covers the UK, with the chief aim of providing between-census estimates of key social and labour market variables at a local area level. Apart from employment and unemployment, the topics covered in the survey include housing, ethnicity, religion, health and education. When a household is surveyed all adults (aged 16+) are asked the four subjective well-being questions.

The 12 month Subjective Well-being APS dataset is a sub-set of the general APS as the well-being questions are only asked of persons aged 16 and above, who gave a personal interview and proxy answers are not accepted. This reduces the size of the achieved sample to approximately 120,000 adult respondents in England.

The original data is available from the ONS website.

Detailed information on the APS and the Subjective Wellbeing dataset is available here.

As well as collecting data on well-being, the Office for National Statistics has published widely on the topic of wellbeing. Papers and further information can be found here.

Percentage of responses in the range 0-6 for 'Happy Yesterday' by LSOA in the First ONS Annual Experimental Subjective Wellbeing survey, April 2011 - March 2012

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has estimated the expected wellbeing of residents at Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA) level. The purpose is to illustrate the likely degree of variation between neighbourhoods.

These are modelled estimates for local areas based on national findings from the ONS Annual Population Survey 2011-2012. They are not the actual survey responses of people living in those areas [1]. As such, DCLG encourage local areas to test these expected findings against their own local knowledge and data.

DCLG used CACI’s ACORN geo-demographic segmentation to estimate the likely wellbeing characteristics of each neighbourhood. Analysis of the APS provided a national profile of wellbeing by ACORN Type, with estimates of average subjective wellbeing and low subjective wellbeing for each of the 56 Types. The national profile was then applied to localities, to reflect their composition according to ACORN Type [2].

The method presumes the national profile of wellbeing for the ACORN types is broadly the same in each local authority. For all of the subjective wellbeing measures, DCLG tested this assumption broadly held across the nine regions. As a result, DCLG made a minimal number of adjustments to the profiles for life satisfaction, worthwhile, and happy yesterday, and determined that the method was not robust for modelling anxiety [3].

Feedback on the neighbourhood estimates and requests for further details of the methodology can sent to wellbeing@communities.gsi.gov.uk.

In October, DCLG will be producing wellbeing profiles to enable users to apply the same methodology using geo-demographic classifications: Experian’s MOSAIC and ONS’s Output Area Classification (OAC).

[1] This is because sample sizes from the APS do not permit reliable estimates of subjective wellbeing below the 90 unitary authorities and counties reported in the First ONS Annual Experimental Subjective Well-being Results.

[2] ACORN is a segmentation based on shared characteristics of people’s life-stage, income, profession and housing, as well as characteristics of places including whether they are urban, suburban or rural. Each respondent on the APS had been classified into one ACORN Type, based on the full postcode in which they live – approximately 16 addresses.) ACORN provided estimates of the population in each ACORN Type in each LSOA and local authority district.

[3] These adjustments were made only where there was reliable evidence (based on samples of more than 100 respondents) from APS that the national wellbeing ACORN profile was substantially different from the regional one, and where the implications for neighbourhood maps would be highly geographically clustered.

The vast majority of Octopus Energy Limited customers were happy following an interaction with the company in the third quarter of 2022, with nearly three quarters of the respondents. By comparison, ** percent of respondents answered they were neutral.

According to a survey conducted by Attest in 2019, almost ** percent of millennials in the United Kingdom strongly agreed with the statement 'I feel often stressed'' with a further **** percent slightly agreeing with this statement.

This data can be used to analyse the relationship between personal well-being and household income and expenditure. It was the source for a recent ONS article looking at how income, the distribution of income across society, source of income and spending affect life satisfaction, a sense that the things we do in life are worthwhile, and levels of happiness and anxiety.

Carried out every four years, the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) examines both the objective circumstances of European citizens' lives and how they feel about those circumstances and their lives in general. It collects data on a range of issues, such as employment, income, education, housing, family, health and work-life balance. It also looks at subjective topics, such as people's levels of happiness, life satisfaction, and perceived quality of society. By running the survey regularly, it has also become possible to track key trends in the quality of people's lives over time. Previous surveys have shown, for instance, that people are having greater difficulty making ends meet since the economic crisis began. In many countries, they also feel that there is now more tension between people from different ethnic groups. And across Europe, people now trust their governments less than they did before. However, people still continue to get the greatest satisfaction from their family life and personal relationships.

Over the years, the EQLS has developed into a valuable set of indicators which complements traditional indicators of economic growth and living standard such as GDP or income. The EQLS indicators are more inclusive of environmental and social aspects of progress and therefore are easily integrated into the decision-making process and taken up by public debate at EU and national levels in the European Union.

In each wave a sample of adult population has been selected randomly for a face to face interview. In view of the prospective European enlargements the geographical coverage of the survey has expanded over time from 28 countries in 2003 to 34 countries in 2011-12.

Further information about the survey can be found on the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) EQLS web pages.

For the second edition (January 2014) the data file has been updated with a new total weighting variable. See documentation for further details and see also the updated version of the EQLS integrated file, held under SN 7348).

The Active Lives Children and Young People Survey, which was established in September 2017, provides a world-leading approach to gathering data on how children engage with sport and physical activity. This school-based survey is the first and largest established physical activity survey with children and young people in England. It gives anyone working with children aged 5-16 key insight to help understand children's attitudes and behaviours around sport and physical activity. The results will shape and influence local decision-making as well as inform government policy on the PE and Sport Premium, Childhood Obesity Plan and other cross-departmental programmes. More general information about the study can be found on the Sport England Active Lives Survey webpage and the Active Lives Online website, including reports and data tables.

The Active Lives Children and Young People Survey, 2017-2018 commenced during school academic year 2017 / 2018. It ran from autumn term 2017 to summer term 2018 and excludes school holidays. The survey identifies how participation varies across different activities and sports, by regions of England, between school types and terms, and between different demographic groups in the population. The survey measures levels of activity (active, fairly active and less active), attitudes towards sport and physical activity, swimming capability, the proportion of children and young people that volunteer in sport, sports spectating, and wellbeing measures such as happiness and life satisfaction. The questionnaire was designed to enable analysis of the findings by a broad range of variables, such as gender, family affluence and school year.

The following datasets are available:

1) Main dataset includes responses from children and young people from school years 3 to 11, as well as responses from parents of children in years 1-2. The parents of children in years 1-2 provide behavioural answers about their child's activity levels, they do not provide attitudinal information. Using this main dataset, full analyses can be carried out into sports and physical activity participation, levels of activity, volunteering (years 5 to 11), etc. Weighting is required when using this dataset (wt_gross / wt_set1.csplan).

2) Year 1-2 pupil dataset includes responses from children in school years 1-2 directly, providing their attitudinal responses (e.g. whether they like playing sport and find it easy). Analysis can be carried out into feelings towards swimming, enjoyment for being active, happiness etc. Weighting is required when using this dataset (wt_gross / wt_set1.csplan).

3) Teacher dataset includes responses from the teachers at schools selected for the survey. Analysis can be carried out into school facilities available, length of PE lessons, whether swimming lessons are offered, etc. Weighting was formerly not available, however, as Sport England have started to publish the Teacher data, from December 2023 we decide to apply weighting to the data. The Teacher dataset now includes weighting by applying the ‘wt_teacher’ weighting variable.

For further information about the variables available for analysis, and the relevant school years asked survey questions, please see the supporting documentation. Please read the documentation before using the datasets.

Latest edition information

For the second edition (January 2024), the Teacher dataset now includes a weighting variable (‘wt_teacher’). Previously, weighting was not available for these data.

Analyses of physician well-being typically rely on small and unrepresentative samples. In April 2011, the UK Office for National Statistics incorporated subjective well-being metrics (SWB) into the Annual Population Survey (APS), a well-established survey. This survey includes variables from the labor market, making APS an ideal source for measuring the association between work hours and SWB metrics and comparing among different professionals. Using APS data from 2011/12 to 2014/15, this study examined the association between SWB levels and work hours using multiple linear models for physicians (primary care physicians and hospital doctors), lawyers, and accountants. Of the 11,810 observations, physicians were more satisfied, happier, and less anxious; females were more stressed (10.7%); and age was negatively associated with happiness and satisfaction. Incorporating information on preferences to work more hours (underemployment) did not affect physicians’ but worsened the well-being of other professionals (lawyers and accountants). Surveyed physicians were less anxious, happier, and more satisfied than lawyers or accountants before Covid. Although the total work hours did not alter the SWB metrics, overtime hours for other professionals did. Increasing the working hours of underemployed physicians (with appropriate compensation) could be a relatively inexpensive solution to tackle the shortage of health workers in the short run.