This is the surprising one, and the two sources disagree more about the UK than about anywhere except Italy. Equaldex scores it 67 out of 100 — a Legal Index of 79 and a Public Opinion Index of 55. ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Map puts it at 44%, 22nd of 49 and its lowest position ever; a decade ago the UK topped that ranking with 86 points.

Both readings are accurate about different groups. The high Legal Index reflects what has not changed: same-sex marriage since 2014, equal adoption, and protections on sexual orientation in work and services that are among the strongest anywhere. The ILGA collapse reflects what has — legal recognition for trans people. The 2025 Supreme Court ruling defined "woman", "man" and "sex" strictly by biological sex, which means a Gender Recognition Certificate no longer functions as full recognition across public life; the promised ban on conversion practices has still not been enacted; puberty blockers were restricted following the Cass Review; and reform of the Gender Recognition Act remains stalled. In June 2026 a new draft Code of Practice drew warnings from ILGA-Europe and others that it deepens the exclusion of trans people further.

The third number is the one most often missed. A Public Opinion Index of 55 is noticeably cooler than Ireland, France, Germany or the Netherlands. Whatever the statute book says, the climate has shifted, and that is measurable rather than anecdotal.

The UK is a "full democracy" in the EIU Democracy Index 2024 (8.34, 17th of 167), with competitive elections, an independent judiciary and a free, plural press. Its weaker sub-scores are political culture and, more recently, some tightening of protest rights (the Public Order Act 2023), but the overall democratic framework is robust.

The UK scores strongly on women's rights, whether measured by lived conditions (the Georgetown WPS Index: education, work, financial access, safety) or by formal legal rights (the World Bank's Women, Business and the Law index) — the two sources Fair Away now averages. Women are well represented across education, health, work and politics. Abortion is legal on request up to 24 weeks.

The UK ranks 14th of 143 in the WJP Rule of Law Index 2025 (0.78) — strong independent courts, real constraints on government power and low corruption, with civil-justice cost and access the main soft spots. The long-term trend has drifted very slightly downward, but this remains one of the more dependable legal systems for a visitor.

Not every country is measured on every value. Where the public data doesn't exist, we'd rather tell you than fill the gap with a guess — and United Kingdom is one of those cases.

The figure on our other country pages comes from the US Department of Labor's yearly review of what governments are doing about the worst forms of child labour, and that review covers the 131 countries which hold trade preferences with the United States. United Kingdom is not one of them, so it is never assessed. The obvious alternative doesn't help either: the ILO and UNICEF's global estimates, published in June 2025, are built on household surveys in 107 countries and leave out Europe and Northern America entirely — in their own words, "because of data limitations".

That absence is not the same as zero. The ILO's regional estimate puts around 2.3 million children aged 5 to 17 in child labour across Europe and Northern America, against under 1 per cent of children in high-income countries as a group. No national figure is published inside that. So the honest summary is that the record here is probably good and definitely unmeasured.