The majority of Bradfordians are satisfied with their lot, a new well-being survey has revealed.

The data, which was collated by polling 165,000 people across the UK as part of the Annual Population Survey, also paints an overall picture of well-being Office for National Statistics (ONS) officials asked people to rate how satisfied they are with their lives, how worthwhile they feel their lives are, how happy they feel and how anxious they feel on a scale of zero to ten – zero being ‘not at all’ and ten being ‘completely’.

People who live in Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles report the highest levels of life satisfaction, self-worth and happiness across the whole of Great Britain, the ONS said.

But in Bradford, just over 70 per cent of respondents scored seven and over on a scale of happiness and only ten per cent said they were not happy.

A total of 74.25 per cent scored between seven and ten for being completely satisfied with their life, while only 5.23 per cent said they were not satisfied. For anxiety, 37.99 per cent of Bradfordians scored low for not being anxious, while 20 per cent scored highly that they were.

The findings were released a day after a report published by Opinium Research on behalf of finance comparison website MoneySupermarket found the recession has left people in Bradford with the lowest quality of life of any major UK city.

Low wages, falling value of houses and high unemployment means household purses are squeezed more tightly here than in any other big city, researchers said.

They have placed Bradford last in a Quality of Living Index which rates the country’s 12 largest cities.

Bradford Council leader Councillor David Green, responding to the ONS survey said: “You get a survey on Tuesday which said one thing and then you have this one saying another. I think people could look at this and take whatever they want out of it.

“The reality for me is that you can have an interesting and intelligent debate about these surveys, but more important for me is the high levels of youth unemployment, health needs of the district and making sure the roads are safe.

“I find that better use of my time than worrying about what comes out of these various surveys.”

Coun Green added: “I am delighted about the 74 per cent of people who are satisfied with their lives. Clearly the Council isn’t able to influence those aspects of people’s lives that they are not satisfied with.

“There will be another survey asking different questions and they will get different answers. For the people of Bradford, we will just keep on doing our best to offer a high level of service for people in the district.”

The latest ONS survey showed that England had the lowest proportion of people who gave themselves the top scores for happiness and life satisfaction.

The ONS report stresses that the reasons behind the local variations are “complex and not yet fully understood”, but it says that the factors most associated with personal well-being are health, employment and relationship status.