Is life good in the UK? The answer depends a great deal on where you live, how much you earn and what you are looking for. International indicators place the country among those with very high human development, with a solid democracy, universal healthcare, excellent higher education and one of the richest cultural lives in the world. But over the past fifteen years several wellbeing indicators have stopped improving, and many Britons feel the country no longer "works" as it once did.
Health and longevity
A child born in the UK today can expect to live on average 79.1 years if a boy and 83 if a girl: figures in line with the Western European average but lower than in Italy, Spain and France. After the pandemic dip, women's life expectancy has returned to 2019 levels, men's not yet. More worrying is the figure for years lived in good health, which has fallen to the lowest since records began: on average around 61 years, that is, before pension age. Obesity, chronic illness and mental health are the great public health challenges.
Happiness and wellbeing
Every year the Office for National Statistics measures personal wellbeing with four questions on life satisfaction, happiness, anxiety and feeling that life is worthwhile. Average life satisfaction is around 7.4 out of 10, stable but below pre-pandemic levels. In the World Happiness Report the UK has slipped out of the top twenty in recent years, while the Nordic countries stay at the top. Surveys show that young adults are now less satisfied than older people, a reversal of the past linked mainly to the cost of housing.
Work and free time
A full-time employee works on average about 36-37 paid hours a week. By law workers are entitled to at least 28 days' paid holiday a year (5.6 weeks), which can include public holidays, the bank holidays: eight in England and Wales, nine in Scotland and ten in Northern Ireland. The culture of the pub, gardening, amateur sport and volunteering remains very strong: millions of Britons volunteer at least once a month and charities are a pillar of social life.
Environment and green space
The country has fifteen national parks, a network of public footpaths tens of thousands of kilometres long and, in Scotland, a right of access to most hill and moorland. London is one of Europe's greenest capitals, with almost half its area taken up by parks, gardens and open spaces. Air quality has improved thanks to low-emission zones, while river pollution from sewage discharges has become a hot political issue.
Safety and services
The UK is a safe country for visitors: police officers do not normally carry firearms, violent crime is lower than in many large American cities and the most common offences are theft and online fraud. Public services, however, are under strain after a decade of austerity: hospital waiting lists exceed 7 million treatments in England, many councils are in financial difficulty and the courts have record backlogs.
In short
The UK offers some of the best professional, cultural and academic opportunities in the world, especially in London and the big university cities, but quality of life depends heavily on income and housing costs. For the numbers see wages, cost of living, inequality, healthcare and living in the UK.