The UK's wellbeing has increased once again, with levels having increased every year since 2011.
The UK's wellbeing is measured annually by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), measuring life satisfaction, happiness, what someone does being worthwhile and anxiety. Health is regarded by the ONS as an important factor in determining well-being.
Scores are given on a scale from one to ten with 0 being not at all, and 10 being completely. A high score for life satisfaction, happiness and worthwhile means a good level of well-being, for anxiety a low score indicates a high level of well-being.
The most common life satisfaction score was 8 out of 10, with an overall average of 7.5 out of 10, up 0.06% on the previous year. Happiness scores were similar, again the most common response was 8 out of 10 and an average score of 7.7 out of 10, up 0.09% on the previous year.
For a feeling that what one does in life is worthwhile 8 out of 10 was the most common response while the average was slightly higher at 7.7 out of 10, up 0.05% on the previous year.
Anxiety scores were down with the most common answer being 0 out of 10 and an average score of 2.9 out of 10 which was down 0.10% on the previous year.
By region London had a lower rate of well-being than the national average, but still showed improvement on the first year of the survey in 2011/12. Northern Ireland registered the highest levels of well-being.
The West Midlands showed the largest improvement overall and the lowest anxiety levels in England.
Paul Avis, marketing director at Canada Life, said: "[Employers] have always been really good at dealing with physical health i.e. objective conditions which you can see touch feel for example cancer broken bits of bodies and so forth, what is more concerning is that we've been less successful with supporting mental health.
"As well as identifying mental health as a challenge for employers the other area that employers have to be aware of, specifically related to that is that many people come in to work when too sick to do so. The employer not only has a duty of care for that but also should be monitoring the impact that presenteeism has on productivity. That is the benefit of having a healthy engaged and positive workforce, is that productivity increases as a result. Clearly where there's an increased focus by employers on wellbeing there is a business benefit of increased productivity."
He added: "Everything we're seeing at the moment is about employers having done automatic enrolment and now beginning to refocus on sickness absence and disability management. A refinement of that around employee health well-being engagement and productivity.
"There is a more positive feeling in UK PLC, employers now seem to have more space and time to focus on more positive initiatives."
