The places where British ex pats most want to live are also among the countries where people are most dissatisfied with their lifestyles and financial outlooks.

Surprisingly, people in the UK are generally more satisfied with their lives, according to research by the European Union.

The report looked at a range of lifestyle and financial factors, like jobs, the economy and healthcare.

The findings showed that overall, countries in the north and west of Europe, including the UK, fared better than those in sunnier climes – with the tiny island of Malta at tenth the only place to buck the trend.

Luxembourg, Austria and the Netherlands came out top of the satisfaction survey – with the UK ninth of the 27 EU states.

After Malta, the remaining 17 states all returned a negative result – including France (13th) and Spain (16th).

The three countries at the bottom of the table are Hungary, Romania and Greece.

Overall, the research concluded that the whole continent is dissatisfied with their lives – although things have improved a little since last year.

“Even if they are still negative when evaluating the general situation of their country, Europeans seem to feel that the economy is recovering, but that daily life is more expensive than it was last year,” said the Special Barometer Social Climate report. (LINK: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_370_sum_en.pdf )

“Optimism that things will improve in the next twelve months has increased. Europeans are still struggling with serious difficulties, but their expectations for the near future are improving.”

The countries least satisfied with their governments are those that have experienced the worst economic problems – Greece, Romania, Latvia, Ireland and Portugal.

Luxembourg records the highest score, followed by Austria, Sweden, Estonia and Germany.

Several non EU surveys have returned France and Spain as the favourite European destinations of British ex pats – with the USA and Australia topping the charts for outside the EU.