The public are split between 36% who say 2025 was a good year for them personally, and the 35% who describe it as an \u2018average\u2019 year. Fewer (27%) review the last 12 months as having been bad for themselves.<\/p>\n
The youngest age group are much more likely to feel they\u2019ve had a good year than their elders: 56% of 18-24 year olds say so, compared to 31-36% of older age groups.<\/p>\n
Those living in middle class households (social grade ABC1) are also more likely to see 2025 as having gone well compared to their counterparts in working class households (C2DE), at 41% versus 29%.<\/p>\n
By contrast, a large majority of the public (66%) consider 2025 to have been a bad year for the UK. Only 6% believe it\u2019s been a good year for Britain, with a further 24% saying it\u2019s been \u2018average\u2019.<\/p>\n
The majority of voters for the four largest 2024 parties all say it has been a bad year for the UK, although Labour and Lib Dem voters are notably less likely to do so (54-55%) than Conservative (77%) and Reform UK voters (83%).<\/p>\n
Looking ahead to 2026, the number of people anticipating a good or average year for themselves doesn\u2019t change much \u2013 although the number expecting next year to go badly for them does drop significantly to 15%.<\/p>\n
Again, it is the young who are most optimistic (59% of 18-24 year olds), with this figure reducing with each age group to 27% of the over-65s.<\/p>\n
Likewise, those in middle class households are more likely to anticipate a good year than those in working class homes (44% vs 31%).<\/p>\n
Three quarters (74%) of those who say they had a good 2025 expect to have a good 2026, while 54% of those who had an average year think next year will be the same \u2013 22% expect things will be better.<\/p>\n
Among those who had a bad 2025, 37% expect next year will also be bad, with 44% expecting a happier year (either average or good).<\/p>\n
Most Britons continue to think that 2026 will play out badly for the UK, albeit at a reduced rate of 52%.<\/p>\n
One in four (26%) think the year ahead will be average, and one in nine (9%) expect it to be good.<\/p>\n
While most Reform (79%) and Tory voters (67%) continue to think 2026 will be a bad year for the UK, this figure falls to 37% of Labour voters and 40% of Lib Dems. Even so, few Labour voters (16%) think 2026 will actively be a good year for the country.<\/p>\n
Overall, expectations of the coming year for the UK correlate strongly with how people think this past year has gone. Three quarters of those who say 2025 has been good (73%) or bad (74%) for the country give the same answer for next year, as do 62% of those who think it\u2019s been an average year for the UK.<\/p>\n
See the full results at the links below<\/p>\n
Interested in taking YouGov surveys? What was 2025 like for you, and what are your expectations for 2026? Have your say, join the YouGov panel, and get paid to share your thoughts. Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n Interested in commissioning YouGov research? We connect in real-time with real people around the world to gather their thoughts, behaviours, and opinions, to ensure that our research data is powered by reality. Explore our survey services here.<\/a><\/p>\n Photo: Getty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The public are split between 36% who say 2025 was a good year for them personally, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-332460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}