Personal wellbeing in the UK improved over the past year but remains below pre-pandemic levels, according to official data.
Office for National Statistics data shows average ratings for anxiety (down 0.18 points), life satisfaction (up 0.15 points) and happiness (up 0.13 points) accounted for the biggest year-on-year improvements since the ONS started measuring wellbeing.
This follows the largest deterioration in wellbeing scores in the year ending March 2021 which coincided with the pandemic.
The proportion of people reporting very high levels of life satisfaction, feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile, happiness or very low levels of anxiety also increased in the year ending March 2022.
Meanwhile the proportion of people reporting low levels of life satisfaction, feeling that the things done in life are worthwhile, happiness or high levels of anxiety decreased.
Average ratings for life satisfaction improved for England, Wales and Northern Ireland compared with the previous year, with the largest improvement, a 0.16 point increase, recorded in England. The ONS added the improvement in life satisfaction for Scotland was not statistically significant.
Average ratings of feeling that the things done in life were worthwhile improved by 0.07 points in England from 7.71 in the previous year to 7.78 in the latest year; but increases seen in other UK countries were not statistically significant.
Happiness levels also increased in England and Wales, with the largest improvement, a 0.14 point increase, in England. Again the increases seen in other UK countries were not statistically significant.
Encouragingly, anxiety decreased across all four countries compared with the previous year, with the largest decrease of 0.26 points in Northern Ireland.
