Wellness is a multibillion dollar industry worldwide, with everybody from Gwyneth Paltrow to Lily Allen promoting the value of mental, physical and interpersonal wellbeing.

At UK Saunas, we are staunch advocates for all types of wellness so we've taken a deep dive into the data, examining thousands of listings for therapists, gyms and spas, along with a huge range of wellness signifiers to find out which cities in the UK value their inhabitants' wellness the most.

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to categorise our study, we've looked at a variety of features across:

Physical Wellness
Skin Wellness
Mental Wellness
Intimate Wellness

We identified 3 top trends from each area and gave each city a score out of 48 to calculate the overall total.

We've looked at the most populous cities in the countries to get the broadest, most accurate picture possible of British wellness.

Key Findings

Norwich is the wellness capital of the UK, coming first for both physical and mental wellbeing.
Exeter is the home of skin wellness in the UK.
Bath tops the list for intimate wellness.

Top 5 Wellness Capitals

Rank trophy	City building	Physical stethoscope	Skin tint	Mental bolt	Intimate heart	Overall sun-o
1	Norwich	131	96	139	132	498
2	Cambridge	104	96	132	116	448
3	Bath	104	78	121	134	437
4	Preston	99	93	126	108	426
5	Chester	111	111	132	60	414

Norwich - the home of physical wellbeing

We ranked cities on the number of gyms and spas per 10,000 people, as well as the prevalence of popular fitness-related hashtags on Instagram.

While Chester came out number 1 for gyms and spas, it's Instagram engagement was low, allowing the other four cities to push ahead.

Rank	City	Gyms	Spas	#[city]fitness
1	Norwich	2	4	10
2	Newcastle	7	8	11
3	Brighton	14	5	8
4	Glasgow	18	13	4
5	Chester	1	1	34

The cities taking care of their skin

This ranking looks at searches for 'skincare routine' and facials in each city, as well as pollution levels, as polluted air can contribute to damaged, unhealthy skin.

Some of the highest-ranked cities in the top 5 recorded the highest levels of pollution, which may influence how often people are looking to take care of their skin online.

Rank	City	Skincare Routine	Pollution	Facials
1	Exeter	8	2	3
2	Chester	18	4	1
3	Cambridge	2	47	2
4	Dundee	15	10	11
5	Norwich	1	46	4

Mental wellness is a priority in these cities

To understand how people approach mental wellness in each city, we looked at Google search data around popular strategies like mindfulness and meditation, as well as the number of therapists available on Google.

Most of the cities in the top 5 overall scored highly for mental wellbeing, suggesting a broad access to licensed therapists and an active interest in popular coping techniques.

Rank	City	Mindfulness	Meditation	Therapists
1	Norwich	3	1	3
2	Cambridge	6	6	2
3	Chester	4	3	7
4	Lincoln	7	8	4
5	Preston	2	12	6

Bath has the highest interest in intimate wellness

What we mean by intimate wellness is an awareness and desire to develop our sexual and relational wellbeing. To find how each city performed in this area, we used Google search data around sex toys and couples therapists, as well as the number of practicing sexual therapists.

Bath only slightly outranked Norwich in this category, with other top 5 city Cambridge also placing highly in each of the ranking factors.

Rank	City	Couples Therapy	Sexual Therapists	Sex Toys
1	Bath	5	2	3
2	Norwich	1	4	2
3	Lincoln	10	47	10
4	Cambridge	3	10	4
5	Bristol	12	46	8

Top 20 Cities

Rank trophy	City building	Physical stethoscope	Skin tint	Mental bolt	Intimate heart	Overall sun-o
1	Norwich	131	96	139	132	498
2	Cambridge	104	96	132	116	448
3	Bath	104	78	121	134	437
4	Preston	99	93	126	108	426
5	Chester	111	111	132	60	414
6	Lincoln	94	70	127	119	410
7	Exeter	105	121	79	100	405
8	Glasgow	112	90	106	91	399
9	York	100	92	113	65	370
10	Derby	97	78	76	108	359
11	Manchester	96	71	88	103	358
12	Newcastle	121	65	71	95	352
13	Bristol	68	73	91	112	344
13	Oxford	73	85	109	77	344
14	Peterborough	72	75	72	94	313
15	Worcester	86	47	112	62	307
16	Gloucester	47	74	99	86	306
17	Brighton	120	46	51	88	305
18	Aberdeen	95	94	51	62	302
19	Belfast	94	46	103	58	301

The UK's most popular celebrity wellness brands

In addition to examining the wellness practices of the UK, we've also delved into the UK's favourite celebrity wellness brands.

For better or worse, celebrity wellness brands are a major part of health culture, spanning skincare, fitness and holistic wellness. Brands like Goop by Gwyneth Paltrow and Fabletics by Kate Hudson are worth millions internationally, but which brands do Brits like best?

Rank trophy	Brand briefcase	Celebrity star	Search Volume search
1	Fabletics	Kate Hudson	97,000
2	Trinny London	Trinny Woodall	76,000
3	Goop	Gwyneth Paltrow	22,000
4	Florence by Mills	Millie Bobby Brown	9,200
5	Womanizer	Lily Allen	7,300
6	Victoria Beckham Beauty	Victoria Beckham	6,600
7	Ivy Park	Beyoncé	6,400
8	Kylie Skin	Kylie Jenner	5,300
9	Poosh	Kourtney Kardashian	5,200
10	Honest Beauty	Jessica Alba	3,500
11	Supergoop	Maria Sharapova	3,400
12	Kit + Kin	Emma Bunton	3,300
13	Project Rock	Dwayne Johnson	2,900
14	Vital Proteins	Jennifer Aniston	1,400
15	Kora Organics	Miranda Kerr	1,200
16	Juice Beauty	Gwyneth Paltrow	600
16	Bare by Vogue	Vogue Williams	600
18	WelleCo	Elle MacPherson	450
18	Fenty Skin	Rihanna	450
20	Calia	Carrie Underwood	400

Methodology

For each form of wellness, we identified 3 signifying factors with which we could measure appetite and availability for wellbeing improvement.

Facials [city] searches - Google

Sex toy searches - Google

For the celebrity wellness data, we used Ahrefs to identify the monthly search volume in the UK.

UK Wellness Report