King's College London

One in five (22%) people say they feel suddenly and deeply thankful to be alive on at least a weekly basis, while another one in seven (15%) say they never experience such feelings, according to a new study that explores some of the UK public’s deepest emotions.

The research, by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, finds seven in 10 (68%) people say they’ve experienced this kind of intense thankfulness at some point in their lives, including one in seven (14%) who say this is a daily occurrence for them.

The study was carried out to mark the recent Associateship of King’s College lecture by Dr King-Ho Leung, Lecturer in Theology, Philosophy and the Arts at King’s College London, titled “Re-thinking the Purpose of Thinking”, which explores the relationship between thinking and thanking.

The research shows that, while religious belief increases people’s likelihood of feeling thankful, a clear majority of non-religious people have felt suddenly and deeply thankful, and 59% of the public do not think belief in God or a Higher Power is essential for people to feel thankful for life or existence.

The study also reveals how the public experience other existential feelings:

• One in four (27%) people say they experience a profound feeling of awe or wonder at the universe or nature either daily (16%) or weekly (11%), compared with one in eight (12%) who say they never do. Those belonging to a religion (38%) are around twice as likely as those who do not (20%) to say such feelings occur at least weekly for them.
• One in five (22%) report a feeling of being connected to all people or living things at least every week, and three in five (58%) report ever having had such a feeling. One in four (24%) say they never experience this sense of connection.
• One in five (18%) say they feel personally guided or watched over by something or someone every week or more often. A majority (54%) of the public report feeling this way at some point in their lives, but a third (32%) say they never have.
• Just over half (53%) the public say there is some guiding purpose in life, including their own life, including four in 10 (40%) people who do not belong to a religion. Three in 10 (31%) of the public as a whole who say such a guiding purpose does not exist.

Carried out with Opinium, the research is based on a nationally representative survey of 2,050 UK adults aged 18+, between 23 and 24 October 2025.

What are we thankful for, who are we thankful to – and does Christmas make us more thankful?

The vast majority of the public say they are thankful for other people in their life (88%), their own life (78%), and all of life in general (73%).

But one in seven say they’re not thankful for all of life in general (15%) or their own life (14%), while just 6% say they’re not thankful for other people in their life.

And when asked if they are always thankful for these things regardless of what is happening in their life at the time, the proportion of the public who say yes decreases – for example, 69% say they’re always thankful for the other people in their life.

Those who belong to a religion are notably more likely than those who do not to be thankful for their own life (85% vs 73%) and life in general (81% vs 68%), though there is little difference in thankfulness for other people in their life, with 91% of people belonging to a religion feeling thankful for them, compared with 87% of those not affiliated with a religion.

The public’s sense of thankfulness is directed towards a wide variety of things, but particularly nature (34%) – which comes top – other people (31%), their own inner self (31%) and God (28%).

But a majority (59%) of the public overall do not think belief in God or a Higher Power is essential for people to feel thankful for life or existence – far greater than the share who think it is essential (22%).

However, those belonging to a religion are split, with 41% saying such belief is essential for this kind of thankfulness and 42% saying it is not.

And, regardless of their religious or spiritual beliefs, most (56%) of the public as a whole say the Christmas season makes no difference to how thankful they feel for life. This compares with a third (36%) who say it makes them feel more thankful and 3% who say it makes them less thankful.

Are young people really much more thankful, religious and spiritual than older people and in the past?

The study findings also suggest young people in the UK have greater feelings of wonder, awe and thankfulness, as well as belief in fate, than older people – but the researchers caution that there are reasons to doubt that these results fully and accurately reflect reality.

They say there has been controversy over a supposed “Quiet Revival” in religious belief and practice among the young, with a debate over the extent to which online panel surveys – such as that which this current study is based on – accurately reflect changes in young people’s attitudes and behaviours on these issues.

For example, a YouGov long-term tracker found the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds who say they believe there is a God roughly doubled in recent years, from 19% in 2022 to 37% in 2025. Another study suggested members of Gen Z are now much less likely than older generations to identify as atheists. A further report by the Bible Society, based on a survey by YouGov, indicated these shifts may be translating into changes in patterns of worship, suggesting rates of church attendance rose from 8% in 2018 to 12% in 2024, with rates among 18- to 24-year-olds increasing from 4% to 16% during this time.

However, the researchers say there are significant reasons for caution at the scale of this change, not least because larger, more expensive studies using random probability methods have not yet detected similar shifts.

The Policy Institute runs the World Values Survey in the UK, last conducted in 2022, which suggests significantly lower levels of belief than those indicated in more recent online surveys. While the World Values Survey does not include questions on awe, wonder and thankfulness, it does include similar questions to some asked in the current study on religious belief – although they are not a like-for-like comparison given different question wordings and response options available.¹

Comparing the two studies, the researchers find that belief in life after death among 18-to-34-year-olds is 9 percentage points higher in the current online panel survey, and belief in heaven is 14 percentage points higher.

There are even larger gaps in stated belief in hell, with the online survey producing results 19 percentage points higher among young people, and 18 percentage points higher for whether young people identify as religious.

However, the researchers note this does not mean there are no shifts happening among the young. In the World Values Survey, they also found higher levels of belief in hell among young people compared with older people – and concluded it was related to the changing composition of this cohort, particularly the much higher proportion of Muslims among Gen Z in the UK.

But there remain reasons to be cautious: while the WVS data is from 2022 and won’t have picked up major shifts since then, the British Social Attitudes survey, last conducted in 2024, does not show a notable change in the proportion of Gen Z saying they have “no religion” and they remain the most likely to say that across all generations.

The researchers say they will be repeating the World Values Survey in 2026 and updating some of these trends, which will allow them to mirror the exact same questions on online panels to test for any differences that may be occurring.

Dr King-Ho Leung, Lecturer in Theology, Philosophy and the Arts at King’s College London, said:

“There have been some very interesting philosophical debates on the feeling of thankfulness for life or existence among non-religious or non-theist people: If there is no God or creator, to whom is one thankful? Do non-theistic people actually feel such existential gratitude? Does one need to believe in God to feel thankful for existence? While it is not surprising that a religious believer would feel thankful (namely, to God) for their existence, it is not clear if the non-religious or the non-theist would feel the same.

“This survey reveals that a large portion of the British public thinks that one does not need to believe in God or a higher power to feel thankful for existing. Indeed, the vast majority of the public, including many who are non-religious and non-theist, say that feel thankful for their own lives, for others’ lives, or indeed for life in general.

“This study shows that thankfulness for life or what we may call ‘existential gratitude’ is a widespread human disposition and experience shared by the religious and non-religious alike. The findings call for further investigations into the nature of such existential gratitude and how this experience may relate to both religious and non-religious ways of understanding human life and meaning-making.”

Professor Bobby Duffy, Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said:

“The difference in worldviews on thankfulness, awe and wonder across segments of the population is striking – with around one in seven experiencing these feelings on a daily basis, and one in seven saying they never feel that way at all. These are not things we normally discuss or measure, but are important aspects how we feel about ourselves and our place in the world.

“The much higher levels of thankfulness, awe and wonder seen among young are a more contested finding, as there are good reasons to think we may not be properly representing these groups and their views in online panel surveys, such as this. This is important to get right, as it has kicked off debates about whether we really are seeing a ‘Quiet Revival’ in spirituality and religiosity in young people. We’ll conduct more experiments on this in 2026, as part of the World Values Survey programme that we run in the UK, to get a more definitive answer on whether and how young people’s spirituality is changing.”

Study details
Opinium surveyed 2,050 UK adults aged 18+, between 23 and 24 October 2025, via an online access panel. Data is weighted by age interlocked with gender and highest qualification, region, ethnicity, working status, 2024 general election vote, 2016 EU referendum vote, and political attention to reflect the profile of the UK population.

1. For example, WVS offers respondents a binary choice of "yes" or "no" to a question asking whether they consider themselves a religious person. By contrast, this current survey offers a broader scale, where people can respond "very", "fairly", etc, as a measure of how religious they would describe themselves.