The 2025 UK Wellbeing Report
Maria Cotofan, Sarah Cunningham, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Richard Layard and Ben Wealthy
Nearly 7 million UK people - around 13% of the population aged 16 and above - are estimated to be living below the Happiness Poverty Line. The World Wellbeing Movement defines the Happiness Poverty Line as those who rate their satisfaction with life at 5 or below on the 0-10 scale reported by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Using the latest annual life satisfaction data made available by the ONS, the 2025 UK Wellbeing Report estimates that an additional 650,000 UK adults - enough to fill Wembley Stadium more than seven times - have fallen below the Happiness Poverty Line compared to the previous 12 months.
18 June 2025
World Wellbeing Movement
This External report is part of the centre's Community Wellbeing programme.
This publication comes under the following theme: Targeting policy at wellbeing