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Daily Record
Daily Record
National
Sean Murphy

The happiest places to live in Scotland named

When it comes to buying a forever home there are a lot of factors to take in, particularly when it comes to work-to-home life balance. However, with remote working now becoming a staple due to the recent pandemic, people are finding they now don't have to be confined to city life.

This means that more and more people are turning to rural locations such as the Highlands and Islands to take advantage of this new way of living, with that in mind, gold payment platform, Glint have carried out extensive research on the best and worst places to buy a house in the UK.

By collecting data around average salary, average house price, crime rates and life satisfaction scores, Glint created an index to rank areas of the UK from the best to worst places to buy a house.

With this data, they’ve found that Orkney takes the top spot as the happiest place to live in Scotland, with a brilliant 8.2/10 score in the Life Satisfaction rating section.

The best places to buy a house in Scotland (Glint)

READ MORE: Glasgow ranked in the top 30 happiest cities on Earth

Other findings included the fact that Scots are happiest by the water, with Coastal regions and islands taking over the top five happiest places to live in Scotland.

Heading north west of Glasgow, Argyll and Bute takes second place, with a Life satisfaction score of 7.7/10 and an impressive overall Home Buying Score of 65/100.

Out of the top 10 contenders for happiest areas to live, East Lothian offers the highest average salary per year. But this comes at a price, as it’s also the second most expensive place to buy a house in the country (based on average price per square foot).

Those looking to get the most for their money should look at Dumfries and Galloway, as out of the top 10 happiest places to live, it has the lowest average price per square foot when it comes to house buying.

Scoring 71/100 on the overall index, Falkirk was ranked the best place to buy a house in Scotland.

The Top 10 Happiest Places to Live in Scotland

Rank

County/Area

Life Satisfaction Score (/10)

Home Buying Score (/100) - Scotland

1

Orkney

8.2

64

2

Argyll and Bute

7.7

65

3

Highland

7.7

61

4

Dumfries and Galloway

7.6

60

5

Shetland

7.6

57

6

Scottish Borders

7.6

55

7

East Renfrewshire

7.6

42

8

East Lothian

7.6

34

9

Moray

7.5

67

10

Perth and Kinross

7.5

51

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