IT’S official, North Ayrshire folk are quite a happy bunch.

A new study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) asked how happy people felt the previous day, with zero meaning “not at all happy” and 10 being “completely happy”.

Both North Ayrshire and East Ayrshire residents scored an average of 7.27 with South Ayrshire scoring 7.55.

But residents in North Ayrshire were revealed to be the most anxious in the three areas.

When answering the question: “Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?”, They scored 3.24 (a zero score meant “not anxious at all”).

This was slightly more than South Ayrshire’s 3.00 and East Ayrshire’s 2.98.

But overall the anxiety score for the three areas is relatively low.

People in all three regions rated themselves as happy with their life, satisfaction and worthiness.

In answer to “How satisfied are you with your life nowadays?”, North Ayrshire residents scored an average of 7.46.

East Ayrshire scored 7.56 while people in South Ayrshire turned in a 7.64 rating.

South Ayrshire also scored the highest in worthiness with 7.93 followed by East Ayrshire 7.75 and North Ayrshire with 7.67.

Overall, the ONS survey showed that people in Scotland are getting happier and less anxious.

Fermanagh and Omagh in Northern Ireland is the happiest place in the UK, followed closely by Orkney and Eilean Sar in the Western Isles.

The least happy place in the UK is Bolsover in Derbyshire. Dundee City finished third on the list.

Glenn Everett, the ONS director of wellbeing, said: “We often talk of how the country is doing, usually in economic terms. These figures address how people are feeling about their lives.

“Overall, people are generally rating their lives higher than they did four years ago.

“But what is interesting is that they show a slight growth in inequality between people rating their lives highly and those reporting low levels of personal wellbeing.

“In other words, a growing inequality that policy makers need to consider.”