Guildford in the top 10.

24 May 2021

Legatum Prosperity Index

The Centre for UK Prosperity part of the Legatum Institute launched in October 2020 with the goal of unlocking prosperity across all regions and communities in the UK.

The Centre supports the Government’s focus on ‘levelling-up’ regions that have historically been left behind, It is also aware that the UK stands at a ‘reset moment’, with more autonomy, flexibility, and control over its own destiny than at any other point for half a century.

The Centre for UK Prosperity have developed the UK Prosperity Index. It includes detailed data on levels of institutional, economic, and social wellbeing across the 379 boroughs, council areas, local government districts, and unitary and local authorities that encompass the four nations of the UK.

Key Themes from the Report

The UK is one of the most prosperous nations in the world, ranked 13th in the Legatum Prosperity Index^TM. Its prosperity increased during the first half of the 2010s but since then has been stagnating.

The UK Prosperity Index shows that the country continues to build an open and strong economy that benefits from one of the strongest education systems in the world, an increasingly strong natural environment, and improving infrastructure.
Overall prosperity is currently being undermined by a deterioration in things that lie outside of the traditional focus on GDP, infrastructure, and transport, including: the safety and security of communities; people’s physical and mental health; conditions for local enterprise such as labour market flexibility; key aspects of social capital; and, to a lesser extent, the effectiveness of local governance.
Analysis of regional and local drivers of prosperity also shows the aspiration to ‘level-up’ the UK is too simplistic. Crude distinctions between ‘north and south’ or ‘cities and small towns’ gloss over the considerable variation that exists both between and within regions and fails to highlight the success stories where we see considerable increases in prosperity