Cities with the best work-life balance

Amsterdam has been crowned the top city for work-life balance, with an average of 30.5 hours worked per week.

According to new research by Holland & Barrett, the average night’s sleep in the Dutch capital hits up to 8.5 hours, leaving Amsterdammers a luxurious 9.5 hours a day to unwind with family and friends.

Holland and Barrett’s Sunlight Cities Index ranks which cities are the best for a better work-life balance, taking into account hours asleep, hours worked and time spent in the sun.

European cities continue to lead the way for a great work-life balance, with Marseille in France coming in second place with 31.5 working hours a week.

Alice Springs, a remote town in Australia’s Northern Territory, comes in joint-third place along with Vienna, Austria, with both offering their residents an average working week of 31.9 hours.

Aukland, New Zealand, offers the fifth shortest working week at 33 hours and in sixth place is London, where the average working week is 33.5 hours.

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Brussels comes in seventh place with 33.80 working hours a week and in joint eighth place is Copenhagen and Oslo with a 34 hour working week. Rounding off the top ten is Rome with an average working week of 34.15 hours.

Alex Glover, senior nutritionist at Holland & Barrett, at Holland & Barrett, said: “Making time for leisure activities, like getting outdoors, exercising and spending time relaxing with friends and family is so important in looking after your physical and mental wellbeing so it’s great to see all these cities offering a good work-life balance.”

“Stress can impact our health in so many ways so it’s vital to take time to unwind and in such uncertain times it’s never been more important to invest our leisure time in self-care.”

The study comes following research released last week that showed Harrogate in Yorkshire as the best place to work from home in the UK.

Bath and the Mendip area of Somerset are close behind, ranked second and third, in a Uswitch Remote Working Index survey. The average property price in Somerset is £419,005, while in Mendip it’s £328,885.

In the UK, nearly a fifth (17%) of people polled have already moved or want to move due to the increase in remote working. People generally want to move from cities and larger towns to smaller towns and villages.

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