Wellbeing of Wales 2025 - Foreword

This year marks a significant milestone, as we reach the tenth anniversary of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. The Act remains the foundation for this report and provides the framework for assessing national progress towards the seven well-being goals. As ever, this report aims to bring together the latest evidence across the breadth of well-being in Wales, to help us understand where we have made progress and where further efforts are needed.

Many of the indicators presented in this report are sourced from the National Survey for Wales. This year, fieldwork issues have resulted in smaller sample sizes and some differences in the sample composition. This has implications for the interpretation of trends, particularly for small groups, and means the assessment of change over time may be less robust than in previous years. We have highlighted these instances throughout the report, and I encourage readers to bear this in mind when drawing conclusions from this year’s findings.

Findings from the last year

The pace of change in our national indicators remains gradual, with limited movement from year to year. Consistent with previous reports, there has been very little change in the assessment of progress for the national milestones.

On a positive note, several environmental and place-based indicators, such as air quality, soil carbon, greenhouse gas emissions, and long-term water quality are either stable or showing improvements. However, our collective perception of place and community has worsened. After a temporary lift during the pandemic, indicators related to community cohesion have largely returned to pre-pandemic levels. This pattern is also evident in other areas, such as adult sport participation, where improvements seen during the pandemic have diminished and are now more in line with trends observed before 2020.

Economic challenges continue to impact the most disadvantaged groups. Large increases in fuel poverty, plus job losses for low paid roles are apparent. The gap in healthy life expectancy between the most and least deprived areas has widened, and overall healthy life expectancy in Wales is now at its lowest recorded level.

Nonetheless, there are areas of positive progress. While inequalities persist, some gaps are narrowing. The gender pay gap has continued to fall, in line with a long-term trend. Gaps in school performance between some groups have reduced, and the employment rate gap between disabled and non-disabled people continues to close. Healthy behaviours are becoming more prevalent, with increases in the number of adults and children engaging in healthy lifestyles.

Changes to this year’s report

We have taken steps this year to make the Wellbeing of Wales report more concise, reflecting feedback from readers and analytics data on how the report is used. Alongside this, there are areas where we have made additions and improvements, such as reporting on the justice national indicator for the first time. This indicator, on confidence in the justice system, was added to the indicator set in 2021.

Looking ahead, Welsh Ministers have agreed that the set of national wellbeing indicators should be reviewed once every Senedd term to ensure that they remain relevant. As such, we expect to begin a review after the next Senedd election in 2026. I hope you will take the opportunity to contribute to this review as it is vital that the indicators reflect what is important to the people of Wales and our national wellbeing.

Stephanie Howarth
Chief Statistician