Most Britons ‘satisfied with life’

The majority of British people are happy in spite of gloomy economic news and social disorder over the summer, according to new figures.

A study of well-being has shown 76 per cent of people rated themselves as seven out of 10 or more when asked to gauge how satisfied they were with life.

The poll of 4,200 adults carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the figure rose to 78 per cent when people were asked to rate the extent to which they feel the things they do in life are worthwhile.

A further 73 per cent rated themselves as seven or more out of 10 when asked how happy they felt yesterday.

But more than one in four, or 27 per cent, rated themselves above five out of 10 in a scale where zero rated as “not at all anxious” and 10 rated as “completely anxious” when answering the question “how anxious did you feel yesterday?” compared to more than half, or 57 per cent, with ratings of less than four out of 10.

The findings from continuous polling between April and August – apart from May – are the firstset of experimental results on subjective well-being fromthe ONS following the launchlast November of the national well-being programme by David Cameron.