Report

Life in the UK 2026

This report from UK think tank Carnegie UK measures collective wellbeing across the UK in 2026.

This is the latest edition of our annual Life in the UK index, now with four years’ worth of data trends, enabling us to take a slightly longer-term view of how people across the UK are living. Overall, this is yet another year where we are seeing a deterioration or stagnation in results: on the whole, life is not getting better for most people across the country. Indeed, out of a possible score of 100, the UK’s collective wellbeing in 2026 was 61, a level which has fluctuated over the last four years but has declined by one point since last year.

Disappointingly, social wellbeing is now 72, one point lower than last year, reflecting cumulative declines in areas including aspects of health, access to services, and experience of discrimination.

Economic wellbeing has also fallen, by two points since 2025, to 70. Less local job availability and ability to afford the things that make life enjoyable, like holidays and socialising, are key contributing factors to this decline.

At 63 out of 100, people’s environmental wellbeing has not declined, but it has not improved either, pointing to stagnation in people’s experiences of their local and national environment since we began reporting in 2023. Similarly, since improving slightly in 2025, democratic wellbeing remains unchanged this year at 41 overall. Although it has not worsened, it has not improved. It is still at a dire level presenting one of the biggest policy challenges facing society today.

Previous editions of Life in the UK have identified that beneath these top-line figures, people’s experiences differ widely according to their circumstances. This remains the case. People with higher incomes and those in the least deprived neighbourhoods have higher wellbeing than others. Disabled people and those who live in social housing generally have lower wellbeing. This year, we have added additional groups to our regression analysis, highlighting further important factors that lead to differences in wellbeing. This shows that graduates are more likely to have higher wellbeing than non-graduates, while LGB+ people face lower wellbeing than those who are heterosexual.

Our mission at Carnegie UK is to ensure that everyone in the UK and Ireland has what they need to live well together now and into the future. We hope that this index points to where change and policy intervention are most needed in the UK to help make progress towards that goal.

Above all, we hope that it will inspire more governments to embed effective wellbeing measurement in their own practice and to use that data to inform decision making that meaningfully improves people’s lives.