Level of trust, fairness and helpfulness
Published:
11 September 2024
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Data on how trustworthy, fair and helpful people in the UK think other people are.
Summary main findings
People’s trust in other people was relatively low between 2002 and 2020, compared with how fair and helpful they thought other people were. There was a small increase in levels of trust between 2018 and 2020.
Between 2002 and 2020, on a scale of 0 to 10:
- people’s average levels of trust in other people went up from 5.0 to 5.4 – 10 means ‘most people can be trusted’
- people’s average perception of fairness went up from 5.5 to 5.9 – 10 means ‘most people try to be fair’
- people’s average perception of helpfulness went up from 5.4 to 5.9 – 10 means ‘people mostly try to be helpful’
By year
Visualisation
People’s average levels of trust, perceived fairness and helpfulness (UK, 2002 to 2020)
Click or tap on legend items to toggle visibility
Data
| Year | Trust | Fairness | Helpfulness |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 5.4 | 5.9 | 5.9 |
| 2018 | 5.2 | 5.7 | 5.8 |
| 2016 | 5.3 | 5.7 | 5.8 |
| 2014 | 5.4 | 5.8 | 5.9 |
| 2012 | 5.4 | 5.8 | 5.8 |
| 2010 | 5.4 | 5.6 | 5.8 |
| 2008 | 5.3 | 5.7 | 5.6 |
| 2006 | 5.4 | 5.8 | 5.7 |
| 2004 | 5.1 | 5.5 | 5.7 |
| 2002 | 5.0 | 5.5 | 5.4 |
Download
For the full download file, see Download the data.
About the data
Data source
European Social Survey (data for the UK)
Time period
2002 to 2020
Geographic area
UK
What the data measures
The data shows people’s mean (average) levels of trust and perceptions of fairness and helpfulness in the UK between 2002 and 2020.
Trust was measured on a scale of 0 (meaning ‘you can't be too careful’) to 10 (‘most people can be trusted’).
Fairness was measured on a scale of 0 (‘most people try to take advantage of me’) to 10 (‘most people try to be fair’).
Helpfulness was measured on a scale of 0 (‘people mostly look out for themselves’) to 10 (‘people mostly try to be helpful’).
Figures are rounded to 1 decimal place.
Things you need to know
Confidence intervals are used for each year covered by the data.
Type of data
Survey data
Full report
Read more in State of the Nation 2024 on GOV.UK.
Download the data
Download full dataset (CSV, 6KB)
This file contains the following variables:
- Indicator code
- Indicator name
- Area type
- Area code
- Area name
- Time period
- Socio-economic background
- Sex
- Category type
- Category
- Value
- Sample size
- Lower confidence interval
- Upper confidence interval
- Standard error
- Unit
Page history
Publication release date:
11 September 2024