Scotland is a rich nation. Even without revenues from offshore oil and gas, our economy is bigger than wealthy countries like Italy, New Zealand, Japan, or South Korea. But around one-fifth of Scotland's people – more than a million of us – live in poverty, and that figure has hardly changed in the last 20 years.
The claim that an independent Scotland would be one of the world's richest countries is based on a league table which places Scotland 14th in the world in terms of GDP per person, ahead of France, China, and the UK.
Scotland has a large abundance of natural resources from fertile land suitable for agriculture, to oil and gas. In terms of mineral resources, Scotland produces coal, zinc, iron and oil shale.
Its access to oil pushes its GDP per person to 115% of the UK's, according to the Scottish government, making it the world's 14th richest country. The UK ranks at number 18.
Scotland's economy grew strongly in 2021 as it recovered from the pandemic, before slowing in the second half of last year. The EY ITEM Club estimates that Scotland's GVA rose 5.3% in 2022, a slowdown from 7.9% in 2021, with 2022's growth concentrated in the year's first half.
Scotland has a rich and diversified economy, with key strengths in areas ripe for growth in the future: the energy sector, including renewables, accounted for £20bn gross value added ( GVA ) in 2019 and 69,000 jobs in 2019. GVA per head was estimated to be over £275,000 in the energy growth sector in 2019.
Scotland's richest people live in the north and north-east, the Sunday Times Rich List will reveal this weekend. A sneak preview of the list, given to this newspaper, shows that Scotland's two wealthiest – spirits magnate Glenn Gordon and Sir Ian Wood and their families – are resident in Moray and Aberdeen.
No, England would be significantly poorer without Scotland's economy. Scotland contributes substantially to the United Kingdom.
Scotland's GDP per head is about £1,600 higher than France, £2,500 higher than Japan and £3,200 higher than Italy, the SNP said.
The UK's largest private landowner is Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, who owns the global clothing chain Bestseller – and 221,000 acres of Scotland. An additional 100,000 acres belong to Swedish-born sisters Sigrid and Lisbet Rausing, heirs to the Tetra Pak fortune.
Scotland is a wonderful place to live – it's got stunning landscapes, a rich history, and it consistently ranks the highest for quality of life out of all the UK nations. Scotland also has great cuisine, home-made whisky, eclectic music, unique arts and culture on show, and some pretty friendly people.
Yes, people living and working in Scotland get that perfect blend of high quality of life and affordable living.
Most Scottish cities have cost of living differences between them and popular UK cities of about 10%. In fact, establishing a business in London is said to cost 30% more than living in Scotland! The cheaper cost of housing in Scotland is the primary reason for the lower average cost of living.
Scotland is cheaper to live in than England
One of the delights that moving to Scotland will bring is a much cheaper standard of living. The living costs in most Scottish cities are around 10% cheaper than those in popular UK cities. In fact, living in Scotland is supposedly 30% cheaper than setting up shop in London!
There are significant regional variations in prosperity, with South East England and North East Scotland being the richest areas per capita. The size of London's economy makes it the wealthiest city by GDP per capita in Europe.
Meanwhile, the average score for happiness in Scotland was 7.36, while England was 7.45, Wales was 7.43, and Northern Ireland was 7.61.
The Office for National Statistics data also provides evidence on the differences across the UK countries. However, that tends to show that average wellbeing scores in Scotland are similar to the UK as a whole. For example, in 2020-21 the average life satisfaction score for both England and Scotland was 7.38.
The report found that Scotland has a lower rate of overall poverty (18 percent) than England (22 percent) and Wales (24 percent), partly because of lower housing costs. Scotland has seen the largest fall in poverty of any area in the UK - six percentage points below where it was 20 years ago.
They settled in the colonies of Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania. In the 1840s, Scots-born immigrants constituted 12 percent of the Australian population. Out of the 1.3 million migrants from Britain to Australia in the period from 1861–1914, 13.5 percent were Scots.
Billionaire Mr Holch Povlsen is ranked number one in the newly published edition of the Sunday Times Rich List in Scotland. Anders Holch Povlsen is Scotland's largest private landowner.
Every year, the Sunday Times compiles a list of the richest people in the country, and while we wait for the 2023 edition, here's look back at the 2022 rich list. According to the Sunday Times, there are 10 billionaires at the head of the 2022 Scottish Rich List with a combined wealth of £23.054 billion.
It is made up of mainland Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) and the northern part of the island of Ireland (Northern Ireland).
Oil and gas have long since been among Scotland's main exports. We have around 2,000 supply chain companies that specialise in everything from drilling and safety to enhanced recovery and decommissioning. We're Europe's oil capital.
3.1. 1 Overview. Scotland has the lowest life expectancy at birth of any Western European country,. In 2018-2020, life expectancy at birth in Scotland was 76.8 years for males and 81.0 years for females; 2.3 and 1.8 years shorter than across the UK as a whole, respectively.