The mental health map of England: check your area

The mental health map of England.

We analysed 15,308 rows of public health data covering 184 English areas. The gap between places is bigger than most people in benefits ever talk about. Find your area below and see the context your people live in.

Published 23 July 2026 · Data: OHID Fingertips extract, ONS4 personal wellbeing measures, 2022/23. Every figure on this page is reproduced from the source data; the full method is at the bottom.

The headline

In the same year, the share of adults reporting high anxiety ranged from 10.4% in Enfield to 33.8% in Southampton. That is a 3.2 times gap between English local authority areas. Where someone lives is one of the strongest signals of the mental health context they sit in, and most employers never look at it.

Find your area

Tap the map or search for your local authority. Percentages are the share of adults giving that answer about yesterday, as published by OHID Fingertips for 2022/23.

Grey: no published figure for this area at this level.

Tap an area or search

The readout shows how the adult population of an area answered the four ONS wellbeing questions in 2022/23, next to the England average.

These are population figures for the people who live in an area, not scores for any employer's workforce. They describe the context around your people, which is exactly why they matter to a benefits strategy.

England is more anxious than a decade ago

Share of adults reporting high anxiety, England, 2011/12 to 2022/23.

Source: OHID Fingertips indicator 22304 (ONS4 anxiety), England series. The 2022/23 figure is 23.8%, against a 2015/16 low of 17.2%.

The ten highest and lowest areas

Share of adults reporting high anxiety, 2022/23. Pink: highest. Black: lowest.

Source: OHID Fingertips indicator 22304, upper tier local authorities, 2022/23. Estimates carry confidence intervals; see the method note.

Postcode context swamps most benefits decisions

Two employers can buy identical benefits packages and still be supporting completely different realities. One workforce goes home to areas where one adult in ten reports high anxiety. Another goes home to areas where it is one in three. The package is the same; the context it lands in is not.

Almost nobody in benefits design looks at this. Provision gets chosen by sector, headcount and budget, then measured by usage, if it is measured at all. The public data says context should come first: know what your people are actually sitting in, then build provision and signposting that meets it.

That is the order we work in. Measure first, then match the support to what the measurement shows.

The Strategy Audit is a free four-minute self-check of whether your wellbeing strategy is genuinely running. The IWE is our free, anonymous, non-clinical team check-in. No call, no card, and using either is never conditional on placing insurance with us.

How this was built

The dataset: Alltoogether maintains an extract of public health indicators from the OHID Fingertips API (Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, Department of Health and Social Care): 15,308 data points across 184 English areas and 11 indicators, spanning 2001 to 2023/24. This page uses the four ONS4 subjective wellbeing indicators from that extract, at upper tier local authority level, for 2022/23, the latest year in the extract. 150 of 152 upper tier areas have published figures; the City of London and the Isles of Scilly do not, and are shown grey.
The measures: The ONS4 are four questions the Office for National Statistics asks adults in the Annual Population Survey, each answered 0 to 10 about yesterday. Fingertips publishes the share of adults at the poor end of each: high anxiety (score 6 to 10, indicator 22304), low life satisfaction (0 to 4, indicator 22301), low worthwhile score (0 to 4, indicator 22302) and low happiness (0 to 4, indicator 22303). These are self-reported wellbeing measures, not clinical assessments or diagnoses, and we present them exactly as the public sources name them.
The headline numbers: Reproduced directly from the extract before publication: high anxiety 2022/23 ranges from 10.4% (Enfield) to 33.8% (Southampton) across the 150 areas with data, a 3.25 times ratio; low life satisfaction ranges 1.9% to 12.5%; low happiness 3.5% to 17.1%; low worthwhile 1.6% to 9.8%. The England values for 2022/23 are 23.8% (high anxiety), 4.1% (low life satisfaction), 7.7% (low happiness) and 4.7% (low worthwhile). The England anxiety trend series runs from 21.7% in 2011/12 to 23.8% in 2022/23, with a low of 17.2% in 2015/16.
Uncertainty: Local authority estimates come from survey samples and carry 95% confidence intervals, which Fingertips publishes and we hold in the extract. Some areas have wide intervals (Milton Keynes, for example, is 31.3% with an interval of 19.0 to 43.6). We show the published central estimates, display each area's anxiety interval in the readout, and have not treated differences between individual areas as statistically significant. The range across all areas, which is the point of this page, is far wider than any single interval.
Boundaries: Map boundaries are Local Authority Districts (May 2022) from the ONS Open Geography Portal, via the ONS visual team's published topojson files, with two tier districts merged into their counties to match the upper tier geography of the data. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2022.
Licence and attribution: Fingertips and ONS data are © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Analysis and presentation: Alltoogether, July 2026. If you spot an error, tell us and we will correct the page: alltoogether.com/contact.
What this page does not claim: Area figures describe the resident adult population of a place, not the workforce of any employer in that place, and never an individual. Nothing here is a clinical measure. Our own products are non-clinical measurement and signposting tools; they do not diagnose or treat anything.

Questions this data answers

Which area of England has the highest anxiety?

Southampton, where 33.8% of adults reported high anxiety in 2022/23, the highest of the 150 upper tier local authorities with published figures. Croydon (32.2%) and Milton Keynes (31.3%) are next. The lowest published figures are Enfield (10.4%) and Newham (10.4%). Source: OHID Fingertips indicator 22304, 2022/23.

Which region of England is the most anxious?

The North West, where 24.6% of adults reported high anxiety in 2022/23, against 23.8% for England as a whole. Yorkshire and The Humber (24.2%) and the South East (24.0%) follow. The East Midlands has the lowest regional rate at 21.5%. Source: OHID Fingertips indicator 22304, regional values, 2022/23.

Does where you live affect mental health?

The published rates vary far more by place than most people expect: a 3.2 times gap in high anxiety between English areas in the same year, and a six-fold gap in low life satisfaction. These are population figures describing the people who live in each area, shaped by many local factors; they do not predict any individual's mental health, and this page makes no clinical claims. What they do show is that the context around a workforce differs sharply from place to place.

What are the ONS4 wellbeing measures?

Four questions the Office for National Statistics asks adults in the Annual Population Survey, each scored 0 to 10 about yesterday: life satisfaction, feeling that what you do is worthwhile, happiness, and anxiety. This page shows the share of adults at the poor end of each scale, as published by OHID Fingertips. They are self-reported wellbeing measures, not clinical assessments or diagnoses.

Where does this data come from?

The OHID Fingertips public health database (Office for Health Improvement and Disparities), indicators 22301 to 22304, which republish the ONS Annual Population Survey personal wellbeing estimates. Alltoogether maintains a 15,308-row extract covering 184 English areas and analysed it for this page. Crown copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0. The full method is in the section above.

The full table: all 150 areas, 2022/23

Share of adults (%) reporting each, 2022/23. Source: OHID Fingertips indicators 22304 (high anxiety), 22301 (low life satisfaction), 22303 (low happiness), 22302 (low worthwhile). England: high anxiety 23.8%, low life satisfaction 4.1%, low happiness 7.7%, low worthwhile 4.7%. A dash means no published figure.

Area	High anxiety	Low life satisfaction	Low happiness	Low worthwhile
Barking and Dagenham	23.2	3.4	6.2	2.7
Barnet	25.2	12.2	9.1	9.8
Barnsley	22.3	6.8	11.3	6.4
Bath and North East Somerset	25.9	7.1	13.3	6.0
Bedford	26.4	4.8	8.9	7.4
Bexley	21.3	3.6	7.6	3.8
Birmingham	22.3	5.4	8.5	4.3
Blackburn with Darwen	23.5	7.0	8.5	4.9
Blackpool	29.1	6.4	11.3	6.4
Bolton	25.4	6.0	6.7	2.9
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole	22.1	3.2	9.2	3.5
Bracknell Forest	25.9	5.1	7.1	4.0
Bradford	26.1	10.2	9.8	6.8
Brent	27.1	7.0	11.1	7.8
Brighton and Hove	26.7	5.6	9.4	2.3
Bristol	23.2	7.0	10.4	8.0
Bromley	21.8	4.0	8.0	4.9
Buckinghamshire	22.1	4.2	9.8	4.1
Bury	25.5	4.9	7.1	2.7
Calderdale	27.1	9.4	13.2	6.7
Cambridgeshire	20.0	7.7	7.1	6.0
Camden	24.4	5.2	8.0	–
Central Bedfordshire	25.0	5.9	8.3	3.9
Cheshire East	25.7	4.2	8.0	2.2
Cheshire West and Chester	25.4	6.6	13.0	5.4
Cornwall	18.1	4.7	8.9	4.2
County Durham	22.0	3.5	9.8	3.3
Coventry	23.0	5.8	8.8	3.3
Croydon	32.1	12.4	15.6	3.4
Cumbria	26.7	3.0	9.2	4.1
Darlington	25.0	6.3	8.5	5.2
Derby	29.3	7.8	9.8	5.2
Derbyshire	21.1	5.5	7.6	4.9
Devon	19.8	4.5	6.8	4.7
Doncaster	27.4	7.2	7.5	2.6
Dorset	21.3	3.8	5.6	2.5
Dudley	19.9	5.2	7.6	3.2
Ealing	28.0	6.4	10.5	6.5
East Riding of Yorkshire	23.7	7.3	11.1	6.7
East Sussex	24.1	7.5	12.9	3.5
Enfield	10.4	6.2	10.9	2.6
Essex	22.7	5.3	7.3	4.2
Gateshead	24.9	6.9	11.1	3.9
Gloucestershire	21.2	6.4	7.7	4.8
Greenwich	23.8	3.1	6.5	2.4
Hackney	21.7	8.0	14.2	5.8
Halton	27.6	7.5	12.4	5.6
Hammersmith and Fulham	24.2	3.9	5.1	2.9
Hampshire	26.3	6.8	9.5	6.2
Haringey	21.9	7.3	10.3	5.2
Harrow	25.4	6.9	5.9	3.0
Hartlepool	25.4	6.6	9.8	4.0
Havering	25.5	5.8	8.6	3.5
Herefordshire	21.7	6.1	7.7	6.0
Hertfordshire	23.9	4.3	8.4	4.1
Hillingdon	24.1	6.1	7.3	–
Hounslow	24.4	3.4	6.9	–
Isle of Wight	23.9	7.5	8.8	5.0
Islington	28.6	5.1	9.2	2.6
Kensington and Chelsea	20.1	10.2	10.6	9.2
Kent	20.0	5.4	5.9	2.6
Kingston upon Hull, City of	29.0	6.3	12.1	4.4
Kingston upon Thames	22.6	2.2	8.3	3.8
Kirklees	25.9	6.2	10.7	5.2
Knowsley	28.2	7.7	10.9	5.2
Lambeth	23.0	1.9	6.8	3.2
Lancashire	22.1	6.2	8.3	3.8
Leeds	20.1	3.8	9.2	3.7
Leicester	21.0	8.1	11.6	6.5
Leicestershire	23.6	6.0	8.8	3.3
Lewisham	27.7	3.2	8.5	6.0
Lincolnshire	20.5	6.1	8.8	3.1
Liverpool	22.5	5.5	5.8	4.7
Luton	19.9	9.1	6.8	3.4
Manchester	24.0	7.2	9.8	6.2
Medway	23.6	5.4	7.6	3.4
Merton	25.0	5.2	9.8	4.1
Middlesbrough	23.7	6.7	11.2	5.1
Milton Keynes	31.3	3.3	5.7	2.7
Newcastle upon Tyne	20.0	5.3	7.2	5.0
Newham	10.4	–	4.6	–
Norfolk	22.3	3.9	9.1	3.0
North East Lincolnshire	20.1	5.9	6.2	3.1
North Lincolnshire	22.9	4.9	10.1	4.8
North Northamptonshire	17.4	10.3	10.7	7.5
North Somerset	21.0	5.0	6.3	3.5
North Tyneside	21.6	5.4	7.9	3.6
North Yorkshire	23.4	5.0	7.9	4.9
Northumberland	19.5	4.1	7.0	4.0
Nottingham	24.8	6.0	9.3	3.6
Nottinghamshire	20.2	5.9	8.8	4.2
Oldham	24.8	9.6	12.4	6.4
Oxfordshire	18.1	2.7	5.8	1.6
Peterborough	26.6	8.7	10.2	5.6
Plymouth	25.4	7.7	6.7	5.1
Portsmouth	23.2	6.0	8.5	3.9
Reading	22.4	5.5	8.4	5.1
Redbridge	24.1	4.7	7.1	–
Redcar and Cleveland	25.2	8.0	8.4	6.5
Richmond upon Thames	26.7	3.9	8.8	3.0
Rochdale	25.1	9.4	7.6	5.5
Rotherham	24.3	4.5	10.4	6.3
Rutland	16.0	–	3.5	–
Salford	23.2	4.9	11.9	4.1
Sandwell	20.9	5.8	8.2	6.4
Sefton	24.3	7.7	10.3	5.0
Sheffield	20.8	6.9	7.9	6.5
Shropshire	18.8	3.6	7.5	2.4
Slough	20.0	6.7	10.9	4.9
Solihull	21.6	4.3	6.5	4.3
Somerset	19.9	5.1	9.2	5.0
South Gloucestershire	22.4	2.9	9.7	3.8
South Tyneside	26.6	7.0	10.9	8.8
Southampton	33.8	6.6	13.1	4.2
Southend-on-Sea	22.9	4.8	10.2	2.5
Southwark	27.8	8.8	10.8	9.0
St. Helens	28.3	8.8	13.7	6.5
Staffordshire	25.6	3.5	9.1	4.8
Stockport	28.5	3.9	9.9	3.4
Stockton-on-Tees	23.9	9.2	12.6	5.7
Stoke-on-Trent	25.6	8.0	11.2	6.9
Suffolk	20.8	4.4	5.2	3.5
Sunderland	25.8	6.6	9.8	5.4
Surrey	27.3	3.6	8.0	3.6
Sutton	25.1	3.4	6.2	3.2
Swindon	22.0	5.5	8.4	3.5
Tameside	22.7	6.3	10.0	5.2
Telford and Wrekin	19.5	5.9	6.8	3.3
Thurrock	22.5	3.4	7.4	4.1
Torbay	27.4	6.6	11.3	3.1
Tower Hamlets	22.4	5.5	10.7	6.9
Trafford	25.9	5.3	7.9	4.9
Wakefield	30.3	8.5	12.1	7.8
Walsall	26.1	6.9	10.7	4.7
Waltham Forest	26.0	9.1	17.1	4.8
Wandsworth	20.8	3.8	5.9	5.1
Warrington	24.7	4.9	8.2	3.5
Warwickshire	21.2	5.2	9.5	3.8
West Berkshire	24.4	3.7	8.8	4.8
West Northamptonshire	19.7	6.2	11.9	4.3
West Sussex	24.5	4.6	11.3	4.6
Westminster	27.9	10.2	11.3	5.3
Wigan	22.1	4.1	8.4	4.3
Wiltshire	28.6	4.8	9.3	3.9
Windsor and Maidenhead	24.4	3.0	7.3	1.8
Wirral	25.8	6.9	11.5	8.4
Wokingham	18.2	3.0	8.7	2.4
Wolverhampton	21.2	9.0	9.7	6.3
Worcestershire	26.2	3.6	6.4	1.9
York	26.2	3.7	6.2	2.7

The mental health map of England.

Find your area

Tap an area or search

England is more anxious than a decade ago

The ten highest and lowest areas

Postcode context swamps most benefits decisions

How this was built

Questions this data answers

Know what your people are actually sitting in.