A new report has been published on the happiness levels of residents across UK cities. Taking into account life satisfaction, anxiety, life expectancy, salary, happiness and sense of worth.

As 2026 begins, many professionals are reflecting on their career satisfaction and happiness in their current roles. For countless employees, the new year symbolizes new beginnings and the opportunity for change, providing the opportunity to start a new chapter in their careers.

OddsMonkey’s UK Cities Workplace Happiness and Satisfaction Report 2026 ranks UK cities according to levels of workplace satisfaction, identifying where residents are most and least satisfied with their current employment situation.

The 5 happiest cities to work in 2026

1. St Albans – 79.88/100

St Albans has been named the happiest city in the UK to work in, with an overall score of 79.88/100. The city performed best in life satisfaction, ranking third for average life expectancy (83.75) and third for sense of value, while also scoring highly on all other happiness factors.

2. Oxford – 76.65/100

Oxford University’s workplace happiness score is 76.65/100, ranking second overall. The city ranked third for life satisfaction and second for sense of value, while ranking in the top 10 for all other happiness factors included in the study.

3. Chelmsford – 69.28/100

Chelmsford’s workplace happiness score was 69.28/100, ranking third overall. The Essex city was ranked first for happiness and second for anxiety, indicating that workers in the city have a strong sense of daily happiness and a positive work-life balance.

4. Winchester – 67.28/100

Winchester finished fourth with a score of 67.28/100. The city’s average life expectancy is 84.35 years, ranking first. Although it ranks well on most indicators, it falls in the bottom half for both happiness and anxiety compared with other UK cities.

5. Colchester – 62.7/100

Colchester rounded out the top five with an overall score of 62.7/100. Another Essex city, it ranks second for life satisfaction and performs relatively strongly on the remaining happiness factors, making it among the UK’s cities with the highest workplace happiness.

5 cities with the lowest worker happiness in 2026

1. Lincoln – 21.16/100

In 2026, Lincoln was rated as the UK’s least happy city for workers, with an overall score of just 21.16/100. The city scored the worst for happiness and sense of value, while also ranking second-to-last for life satisfaction among all cities analyzed.

2. Manchester – 25.83/100

Manchester was ranked second-worst for worker happiness, with a score of 25.83/100. The city ranks third from the bottom for life satisfaction, second from the bottom for happiness and sense of worth, and third from bottom for average life expectancy at 77.85 years, although it ranks fifth from the bottom for anxiety.

3. Nottingham – 34.96/100

Nottingham ranks third from the bottom for employee happiness, with a score of 34.96/100. The city had the fourth-lowest median weekly income in the study and was generally on the lower end of the remaining well-being measures analyzed.

4. Norwich – 35.1/100

Norwich ranks fourth lowest for employee happiness, with an overall score of 35.1/100. The city had the highest anxiety scores in the study, while also ranking low on most other measures of well-being in the analysis.

5. Glasgow – 36.64/100

Glasgow’s worker happiness index is 36.64/100, ranking fifth from the bottom. The city has the lowest average life expectancy at 76.5 years. While it ranks eighth for median weekly income, it ranks poorly in most other happiness factors.

complete data set

methodology

To identify the UK cities with the highest levels of workplace happiness and satisfaction, we compared six key indicators reflecting residents’ well-being, financial security and overall quality of life. Together, these indicators reflect how people feel about the environment in which they live and work.

Because each metric is reported on a different scale and in different units, we first normalized all data to ensure fair comparisons across cities.

Standardization and scoring

For each individual measurement:

• The best-performing cities receive the highest scores
• The worst-performing cities were rated zero
• All other cities receive points based on their proximity to the best-performing city

Each of the six indicators is given equal weight, ensuring that no one factor has a disproportionate impact on the final ranking.

An exception applies anxiety: Since lower anxiety reflects better well-being, cities with lower anxiety scores will score higher, while cities with higher anxiety scores will score lower.

After each city receives scores for all six indicators, the scores are added together to arrive at a Final workplace happiness and satisfaction score (out of 100)which is then used to rank cities.

Measures included

All cities are evaluated using the following six equally weighted indicators:

• life satisfaction
• sense of value
• happiness
• Anxiety (reverse score)
• average life expectancy
• median weekly income

Data source

personal well-being measures

Data on life satisfaction, sense of worth, happiness and anxiety were taken from Personal well-being in the UK: April 2022 to March 2023published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This dataset provides estimates of self-reported happiness in selected areas, including at local authority level.

The survey questions used were:

• Overall, are you satisfied with your current life?
  
• Overall, to what extent do you think the things you do in your life are worthwhile?
  
• Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?
  
• Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?
  

life expectancy

Average life expectancy data comes from Life expectancy in local areas of the UK: between 2001-2003 and 2022-2024published by the National Bureau of Statistics.

To calculate a single life expectancy figure for each city, we averaged male and female life expectancy using the following calculation:

(Male life expectancy + Female life expectancy)/2

income

Salary data statistics come from Annual Survey of Working Hours and Earnings Published by the Office for National Statistics.