Excellent quality of life conditions makes Denmark a great place for companies seeking to attract and retain top talent
Few things matter more to ambitious companies than the ability to attract and hold on to a highly competent workforce - and one thing the world’s top talent values is excellent living conditions where they are located.
A new ranking, the 2025 Happy City Index, places Copenhagen first in the world for quality of life, with Denmark’s second-largest city of Aarhus, coming in fourth.
Moreover, Denmark ranks fourth in the world on the United Nations’ 2025 Human Development Index, and hold the top spot worldwide in the US News Quality of Life country ranking, ahead of Sweden and Switzerland.
Some of the highlights mentioned in these studies include Copenhagen and Aarhus’ strong innovation and research clusters, clean and safe environments, and Denmark’s renowned work-life balance - particularly important for talents bringing their families or planning to start one. In fact, Denmark ranks second-best among developed economies (after Italy) in the OECD’s study of work-life balance.
Measuring quality of life and happiness is difficult, as it is subjective what people value, and to what extent objective factors (such as clean and safe environment etc.) translate into a feeling of wellbeing varies. Nevertheless, the various indicators consistently point to Denmark as a top-of-the-rung destination when it comes to providing all the preconditions for a very high quality of life.
About the measures
Happy City Index:
This ranking covers cities with reliable and comprehensive data available, and looks at 82 indicators across the themes of Citizens (e.g. foreign language competence, knowledge centres, and housing affordability), Governance (e.g. availability of online public services), Environment (e.g. green parks and spaces), Economy (e.g. GDP per person, unemployment rate), Health (e.g. wellbeing in school, safety in public spaces) and Mobility (e.g. air transport availability and road traffic accidents).
United Nations Human Development Index:
The index looks at the life expectancy at birth, expected years of schooling, mean years of schooling, the GNI per capita, and the difference between GNI per capita and the Human Development ranking.
See the United Nations Human Development Index here
US News & World Report:
This ranking draws on surveys of nearly 17.000 people worldwide and scores countries across on the following indicators: Affordable, job market strength, economic stability, family-friendliness, income equality, political stability, safe, well-developed public education system.
US News & World Report:
This ranking draws on surveys of nearly 17.000 people worldwide and scores countries across on the following indicators: Affordable, job market strength, economic stability, family-friendliness, income equality, political stability, safe, well-developed public education system.
OECD’s Work-life balance:
This measure is based on time devoted to leisure and personal care, as well as the percentage of employees working very long hours.
Visit the OECD Better Life Index here