Life in the UK 2026 England
Think tank: Carnegie UK
Author(s): Various authors
November 9, 2026
This report from UK think tank Carnegie UK measures wellbeing in England in 2026.
This is the latest edition of our annual Life in the UK – England index, now with four years’ worth of data trends, enabling us to take a slightly longer-term view of how people across England are living.
Disappointingly, for the first time since we began the survey, the overall collective wellbeing score in England has decreased by one point to 61 out of 100. There have been losses in three domain scores for England too, with only environmental wellbeing unchanged. Social wellbeing has fallen by one point to 71. This is lower than it was when Life in the UK first reported in 2023 and lower than in Scotland and Northern Ireland this year.
Economic wellbeing has fallen by two points to 70, the lowest score Life in the UK has yet recorded in England. Beneath this headline figure, satisfaction with the availability of job opportunities in people’s local areas is also at its lowest level since the index began. Democratic wellbeing has also fallen after an upturn last year, and is back at 41, in line with the scores seen in 2023 and 2024.
These changes all indicate that the limited progress we saw in 2025 has not been sustained into 2026, and point to the need for urgent action to reverse this concerning downward trend. At the same time, we see persistent inequalities in how people experience life. Income; whether someone is disabled; place; age; gender, and ethnicity all affect people’s wellbeing. Expanded analysis for 2026 also shows that further factors, including education status and sexual orientation, affect our chances of experiencing better wellbeing.
