With many of us living longer lives we could expect to be working for five decades. It’s crucial that wherever you live in the UK that you can access work that is fulfilling, well-paid and sustainable.  

It’s important for individuals, not least because of the critical contribution extending working life can have in enabling people to retire on a decent income. Our research found that 17 million people are not saving enough to retire when they want to on the income they want, so it’s important people have confidence that their employment will sustain them to and through their retirement.  

Providing good quality work across the UK is also important because of the vital contribution it makes to the UK’s economic growth and productivity. 

Using data from polling by Ipsos UK of 6,000 UK adults who are not currently retired, along with publicly available data from the ONS, we’ve created the Employment Index to help us better understand the challenges people are facing across the UK in securing and remaining in employment.  

We’ve found that there is lots for us to talk about. Overall, the South West ranks as the best UK region to be in work, with London in second place, but different regions perform strongly in the other measures with Scotland coming out top when it comes to the confidence people have in remaining in work until they retire although the region ranks fifth for employment overall.  

We know that good quality, satisfying jobs matter to people of all ages but that across the UK different regions score higher in some measures than others. That’s why it’s important for businesses and government to work together to create targeted skills and employment support to close any gaps and bolster UK productivity.  

Explore our heatmaps and read our press release to see where your region ranks when it comes to job satisfaction, employment confidence, financial security and economic activity.