Climate rankings

Sunniest and warmest places to live in the UK

Isle of Wight is the sunniest place in the UK, with around 5.1 hours of sunshine per day on average, rising to 7.8 hours a day in summer. That's around 34% more than the UK average.

Southampton is the warmest, with typical summer daytime highs reaching 15.7°C. For comparison, Perth and Kinross manages just 10.5°C on average.

Southern and coastal areas dominate the top of the table. The south coast of England consistently gets the most sunshine, while northern Scotland and upland areas receive the least. But there are surprises in the data, so it's worth looking beyond the obvious choices.

Data last updated: 7 July 2026

All 350 areas ranked by annual sunshine hours, from sunniest to least sunny. You can search for a specific area, filter by region, or switch to the Temperature tab to see which areas have the warmest daytime highs. Click any column header to re-sort the rankings.

Showing 350 of 350 areas.

A closer look at the top 10

The south coast of England takes eight of the top ten sunshine slots, and it is not close. The Isle of Wight leads at 1,875 hours a year, followed by Hastings (1,871), Folkestone and Hythe (1,857), Thanet (1,851) and Dover (1,849). Every one of those authorities faces roughly south, sits on the coast, and gets less rainfall than the rest of the country's average because they sit east of the wetter high ground further west.

The top 10 is remarkably tightly packed. The gap between #1 Isle of Wight and #10 Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is just 82 hours across the whole year, which works out at around 13 extra minutes of sunshine per day. In practice these places all have very similar summer weather, and the ranking would flip around year on year if we were looking at a single year rather than the 30-year Met Office average.

Sunshine and warmth are not the same measurement. The Isle of Wight is #1 for sunshine hours but not necessarily #1 for temperature, because temperature is driven more by proximity to the London urban heat island than by hours of sun. Switching the sort to Temperature reshuffles the top of the table towards inner-London boroughs and the sunniest south-coast areas together, rather than either group on its own.

Against the UK average of around 1,400 hours a year, the Isle of Wight gets roughly 34% more sunshine. That is a meaningful difference over a lifetime but a modest one on any given week, which is worth remembering when reading rankings like this one; the headline gap is real but the day-to-day experience depends much more on the specific summer you happen to be there.

Key findings

  • Isle of Wight is the sunniest place in the UK with 1,875 hours per year.
  • Southampton has the highest average daytime temperature at 15.7°C.
  • The top 3 sunniest areas (Isle of Wight, Hastings, Folkestone and Hythe) all sit on or near the south coast of England.
  • The UK average is around 1,400 hours of sunshine per year; Isle of Wight gets 34% more.

Methodology

Areas are ranked using Met Office HadUK-Grid 5km-resolution climate data, averaged over the 1991-2020 reference period. Each local authority's figure is aggregated from the observation grid cells that fall within its ONS boundary. Where a very small local authority contains no grid centre, the nearest-cell fallback is used.

Read more about our data sources and approach on the About page.

Frequently asked questions about the sunniest places in the UK

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Source: Met Office HadUK-Grid, 1991-2020 averages. Crown copyright. Open Government Licence v3.0.