Young people in the UK have the lowest life satisfaction in Europe
How satisfied are you with your life? It’s a simple question, but for many young people in the UK, the answer is worrying. New analysis conducted by The Children’s Society has revealed that 15-year-olds in the UK have the lowest average life satisfaction of all the European countries included in the analysis.
Programme for International Assessment
The findings come from the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the world’s largest international survey of 15-year-olds1. Alongside looking at academic skills and knowledge, PISA asks young people about their wellbeing – including how satisfied they are with their lives.
We look closely at data like this because it helps us understand what life is really like for children and young people. Our annual Good Childhood Report tracks children’s wellbeing in the UK, while new research like this helps us understand how their experiences compare internationally.
How are young people feeling
How are young people feeling?
From the latest PISA data, collected in 2025, we analysed responses from almost 200,000 15-year-olds across 29 European countries, including more than 13,500 young people from the UK2.
Young people were asked to rate how satisfied they were with their life overall, from 0 to 103.
In 2025, 15-year-olds in the UK ranked lowest for average overall life satisfaction compared to 28 other European countries, with an average score of 6.73 out of 10. Across Europe, the average was higher, at 7.32. Croatia had the highest average score, at 8.00.
Germany
This translates to just under one in five (18%) 15-year-olds in the UK reporting low life satisfaction. Only Czechia and Germany were found to have a higher proportion of young people who reported low life satisfaction.
While life satisfaction appears to have improved somewhat since the previous PISA data from 2022, the UK still had the lowest average score among the European countries included in this analysis4.
Wellbeing services
Your emotional health and wellbeing is important. It helps you stay positive, confident and optimistic. However, we all have times where we feel low. Whatever you're going through, you're not alone. There are helplines you can call, places you can go to talk, and plenty of online information and advice to get you feeling hopeful again.
Not every young person is experiencing life in the same way
Not every young person is experiencing life in the same way
The figures also show a striking difference between young people due to gender and different backgrounds. One in five (20%) girls reported low life satisfaction, compared with 16% of boys. But the biggest gap was linked to financial circumstances. Among the most disadvantaged 15-year-olds in the UK, 26% reported low life satisfaction, compared with just 11% of the least disadvantaged. That’s a 15 percentage point difference – the largest gap between the most and least disadvantaged young people across the European countries included in the analysis5.
What needs to change?
This tells us something important: where a child grows up and the financial circumstances of their family can have a significant impact on their wellbeing.
It reflects what children and young people tell us through our own work – that opportunities and support aren’t equally available to everyone.
What needs to change?
These findings underline why improving children’s wellbeing must be a national priority. The UK’s particularly large gap between the most and least disadvantaged young people also reflects what children have told us6, that access to support and opportunities are not evenly distributed. The Government should routinely measure and track children’s wellbeing, using this evidence to shape policy and assess progress over time.
The findings also strengthen the case for greater investment in early support and prevention, helping children before their challenges escalate into crisis. Crucially, policymakers must listen to young people themselves about what affects their wellbeing and involve them in designing the solutions. By combining robust wellbeing data with young people’s experiences, we can build policies that give every child the chance to enjoy a good childhood and thrive.
Author: Amanda Clery
Footnotes
1 More details available from: https://www.oecd.org/en/about/programmes/pisa.html
2 Not all countries included in the analyses met the PISA sampling requirements, so while the OECD have advised their use for international comparisons, the analysis should still be treated with caution. Any countries that the OECD recommended should not be used, have been excluded from the analyses. As such, we included a total of 29 European countries in our analyses. More details are available in the draft technical report available for download from: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/pisa-2025-database.html. The total number of students who responded to the life satisfaction question in the survey and so were included in the analysis was 199,431 for all 29 European countries included and 13,576 in the UK.
3 The PISA survey includes a measure of life satisfaction, which asks students, on a scale from 0 to 10, "overall, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?", with 10 being completely satisfied. 15-year-olds who selected 0-4 were considered to have low life satisfaction, and those who selected 5-10 had not low life satisfaction.
4 Data from 2022 reported in The Good Childhood Report 2024, see: The Good Childhood Report 2024 | The Children's Society
5 Socio-economic differences were based on PISA's index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS). The most disadvantaged were defined as those in the bottom 25% in each country, and the least disadvantaged as the top 25%. The index considers parental occupation, parental education, and availability of certain household items as a proxy for family income.
