Exact money you need to earn to be ‘happy’ living in the UK

Money doesn’t buy you happiness, yet a new study has tried to get to the bottom of just how much money Britons need to earn to be “happy” living in cities across the UK. To find the cost of happiness in each city, analysts from S Money used information from Purdue University’s popular study on the relationship between money and happiness.

The study finds that a greater income generally improves people’s moods, however, it’s worth noting this is only to a certain point, known as the “happiness premium”.

Anything earned after this “premium” seems to dwindle – and the experts note that how you spend your money might actually be the key to happiness rather than how much of it you take home.

According to S Money’s study “the price of happiness in UK cities” is most achievable in Leicester, where they claim the “annual price of happiness” is £66,117. Given that the UK national average wage is an annual pre-tax salary of around £34,900, even the lowest “price of happiness” is almost double the UK average.

At the other end of the scale, unsurprisingly, is London, where the team at S Money claim the “price of happiness” is a whopping £79,524.

According to data from Numbeo, groceries in Leicester are 29.6 percent cheaper than in London.

“In general, the south is not a happy place to be unless you are a higher-tier earner: eight out of the ten cities with the highest price of happiness are south of Birmingham,” said the report.

However, the experts said that where you live and how much you earn isn’t necessarily the key to happiness. “Money can’t buy us happiness,” says Marc Schulz, an Associate Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

“But it’s a tool that can give us security and safety and a sense of control over our lives. At the end of the day, life is really about our connections with others. It’s our relationships that keep us happy.”

Scroll down to see the “annual price of happiness” in each of the UK cities included in the research – where does your city rank?

Annual price of happiness in UK cities

1. London – £79,524
2. Cambridge – £74,808
3. Guildford – £74,273
4. Brighton – £72,022
5. Bristol – £70,307
6. Oxford – £70,219
7. Reading – £69,897
8. Manchester – £68,611
9. Liverpool – £68,182
10. Bournemouth – £67,968
11. Glasgow – £67,860
12. Nottingham – £66,982
13. Plymouth – £66,875
14. Leeds – £66,446
15. Belfast – £66,232
16. Derby – £65,803
17. Edinburgh – £65,816
18. Newcastle upon Tyne – £65,387
19. Norwich – £65,280
20. Southampton – £64,959
21. Exeter – £64,107
22. Sheffield – £64,107
23. Cardiff – £63,357
24. Portsmouth – £63,369
25. Coventry – £63,047
26. Aberdeen – £62,833
27. Birmingham – £62,404
28. Dundee – £61,224
29. Leicester – £61,117