Facial recognition tool reveals these two Lancashire towns are happiest in UK

Artificial intelligence tool, Microsoft Azure, was used by Online Mortgage Advisor to analyse geotagged Instagram posts from all over the world to find out just how happy people in the UK are.

The company collected a set of photos that featured the hashtag #selfie to find the overall happiest locations in the UK.

The AI tool then discovered the most dominant emotions displayed in the faces in every photo, which allowed Online Mortgage Advisor to rank the happiest and least happy locations around the UK as well as the happiest locations for recent homebuyers.

Key findings:

• Manchester was found to be 42.4 per cent less happy than the UK average

• Rotherham is the least happy location in the UK with locals there being 82.1 per cent less happy than the UK average.

• Blackpool tops the list with people being 71.9 per cent happier than the UK average

How happiness was measured

Online Mortgage Advisor used Microsoft Azure to scan clear photos of faces and the tool provided a score for each emotion displayed on the face based on prevalence (the highest-scoring emotion is the most dominant emotion present).

Happiest locations in the UK

The study discovered that Blackpool is the happiest location in the UK according to Instagram selfies, scoring 67.5 out of 100 on the happiness scale – 71.9 per cent over the national average.

Northern Irish city Derry-Londonderry comes in second place with a score of 66.8 out of 100 (70 per cent over the national average).

Preston ranks third.

The happiest UK cities: rank; city; average of happiness; happiness increase over UK average

1 Blackpool; 67.5; 72 per cent

2 Derry-Londonderry; 66.8; 70 per cent 

3 Preston;65.5; 67 per cent

4 Dundee; 64.5; 64 per cent

5 Bath; 63.7; 62 per cent

6 Midlothian; 63.3; 61 per cent

7 Cambridge; 62.7; 60 per cent

8 Chichester; 62.3; 59 per cent

9 Leeds; 62.0; 58 per cent

10 Peterborough; 60.8; 55 per cent

The least happy locations in the UK

Conversely, the study found Rotherham to be the least happy location in the UK, scoring only seven out of 100 on the happiness scale (82.1 per cent below the UK average).

Holywood scored 18.8 out of 100 (52.1 per cent below the national average), followed by Leicester with 20.7 out of 100 (47.2 per cent below the national average).

The least happy UK cities by rank; city; happiness decrease over UK Average

1 Rotherham -82.1 per cent

2 Holywood -52.1 per cent

3 Leicester -47.2 per cent

4 Manchester -42.4 per cent

5 London -27.3 per cent

6 Bristol -11.5 per cent

7 Milton Keynes -11.5 per cent

8 Nottingham -10.7 per cent

9 Portsmouth -10.4 per cent

10 Luton -7.1 per cent

Methodology

• Analysis was performed in August 2021 and considers a set of Instagram posts using the hashtag #selfie.

• Every photo in the analysis was scanned with the Microsoft Azure facial recognition tool. Microsoft Azure analyses clear photos of faces and automatically provides a score on the levels of different emotions present. The detectable emotions are anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and neutral. For our analysis, we combined the negative emotions (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness) into one category (‘negative’).

• Only geotagged Instagram photos were considered in the analysis. Geotags was used as an indicator as to where the photo was uploaded.

• A UK location was only included in the analysis if at least 50 AI-detectable photos were geotagged there.