Indicator
Relationship between qualifications and health
Published
29 April 2025
Last updated
26 June 2026
Time to read
About 2 mins
About 2 mins
Key points
- People with a degree or equivalent qualifications are almost three times more likely to report being in excellent health compared with people who have no qualifications.
- People with no qualifications are more than six times more likely to rate their health as being poor compared with people who have a degree or equivalent qualification.
Education plays an important role in shaping people’s health by influencing factors such as income and employment. In turn, these provide the resources people need to maintain good health, such as access to nutritious food and safe housing. It can also support better health literacy, making it easier for people to understand health information and allow more informed health choices as a result.
This chart shows the percentage of people that rate their health as ‘poor,’ ‘fair,’ ‘good,’ ‘very good,’ or ‘excellent,’ grouped by their highest qualification in 2023–24.
- Almost half (45.9%) of people with a degree or equivalent qualification rated their health as being ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’. This compares with 15.2% of people with no qualifications.
- 29% of people with no qualifications rated their health as ‘poor’ compared with 4.4% of people with a degree or higher.
- The data presented here are weighted estimates from Understanding Society survey, a longitudinal survey of households in the UK.
- Some groups have small sample sizes (all groups > 30) so results should be treated as indicative.
- Includes people aged 25 to 64 years.
- Self-rated health is measured on a five-point scale from ‘excellent’ to ‘poor’. Other options include ‘very good’, ‘good’, and ‘fair’.
- ‘Other qualifications’ includes Certificates of Secondary Education, school-leaving exams and other similar qualifications.
Source: University of Essex – Institute for Social and Economic Research, Understanding Society: Wave 15, UK, 2023–24.
