The city was found to be the happiest in the country due to affordable housing, public transport, and safe streets
04:00, 04 Jun 2026
York city Centre(Image: Dennis Barnes via Getty Images)
A Yorkshire city has been named as the happiest place to live in the UK.
York was named as the happiest place to live in the country following a study by Housebuyers4u, who released the information this month. It said York is the happiest, with affordable housing, reliable public transport, and the safest streets in the country all contributing.
One other Yorkshire city made it into the top then, with Sheffield being named the fifth happiest.
The research considered more than 50 major UK cities, and measured how happy residents feel on a scale of one to ten. It also measured how safe their neighbourhoods are and what each city is like in terms of parks, housing and getting around.
It also tracked the number of people who feel lonely, how many people have jobs, and how often locals search for things like “am I depressed”, or “I can’t sleep”.
York found itself in first place with a life satisfaction score of 7.65, a quality of life score of 90 out of 100, a safety score of 72.9 out of 100, a loneliness prevalence of 9.1 percent, an employment rate of 79.4 percent, and 201 searches per 10,000 people indicating mental distress.
In second place was Ipswich, followed by Newcastle, Oxford, Sheffield, Brighton, Edinburgh, Crawley, Cambridge, and Swindon.
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Paul Gibbens, Property Expert at Housebuyers4u, said: “It might sound funny, but British cities were never designed with happiness in mind. They grew around coal mines, shipping ports, and factories where the priority was getting workers close to their jobs. Now we’re left with dense urban areas that don’t have enough green space or affordable housing.
“When you’re living paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford a decent place, and there is nowhere to go to clear your head, either, all that stress just builds up. That’s how big a role the city you live in actually plays in your well-being.”
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