Average IQ in the UK
The average IQ in the UK is 100. That is partly by design: the most-cited national IQ dataset (Lynn and Vanhanen, 2012) uses British test norms as its reference, so the UK sits at 100 and other countries are measured against it.
The average IQ in the UK is 100. What's yours?
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- 488
- PISA 2025 maths (OECD 463)
- 494
- PISA 2025 reading (OECD 461)
- 511
- PISA 2025 science (OECD 482)
- 268
- Adult numeracy, 2023 (OECD 263)
Its figure that also folds in school results is 99.1. Two in three people in the UK score between 85 and 115.
Where the figure comes from
National IQ figures come from compilations of published test results. The best known, by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen, converts every country's results to a scale where British norms equal 100. That makes the UK the yardstick rather than a measured outcome: its "measured IQ" is 100 by construction.
Their "final IQ" also folds in school achievement results and puts the UK at 99.1. These datasets are widely criticised (see the limits below), so the figure is best read as "the UK is the reference point", not as a precise measurement of the population.
| Country | Measured IQ | Final IQ |
|---|---|---|
| UK | 100 | 99.1 |
| US | 98 | 97.5 |
| Canada | 100 | 100.4 |
| Australia | 98 | 99.2 |
| Finland | 97 | 100.9 |
Lynn and Vanhanen (2012), Table 2.1. Measured IQ uses IQ test results only; final IQ also folds in school achievement. Scale: UK norms = 100.
The United Kingdom in PISA 2025: what 15-year-olds can do
PISA tests 15-year-olds in maths, reading and science every few years. It is not an IQ test, but it is the most current, carefully sampled comparison of thinking skills between countries. In PISA 2025, UK students scored above the OECD average in all three subjects.
| Country | Maths | Reading | Science |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK | 488−1 | 494 | 511 |
| US | 463−2 | 490 | 502 |
| Canada | 485−12 | 490 | 510 |
| Australia | 478−9 | 491 | 509 |
| Finland | 469−15 | 474 | 504 |
| OECD | 463−9 | 461 | 482 |
PISA 2025 mean scores. The small figure under maths is the change since PISA 2022. The OECD flags that the US and Canada did not fully meet its 2025 sampling standards. Source: OECD (2026), PISA 2025 Results, Volume I, Table I.1.
Adult skills: the OECD Survey of Adult Skills
The OECD Survey of Adult Skills tests adults aged 16 to 65. Only England took part from the UK. In the 2023 round, adults in England scored above the OECD average in literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving.
| Country | Literacy | Numeracy | Solving |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland | 296 | 294 | 276 |
| England | 272 | 268 | 259 |
| Canada | 271 | 271 | 259 |
| US | 258 | 249 | 247 |
| OECD | 260 | 263 | 251 |
Survey of Adult Skills 2023 (PIAAC cycle 2), mean scores for adults aged 16 to 65. Solving is adaptive problem solving. Source: OECD (2024), Do Adults Have the Skills They Need to Thrive?
Is the average IQ in the United Kingdom rising or falling?
For most of the 20th century, British scores rose. On Raven's matrices, British schoolchildren aged 5 to 15 gained about 14 IQ points over roughly 65 years from the early 1940s, about 2 points a decade (Flynn, 2009). That rise is the Flynn effect, and it is why tests are re-normed every generation.
Since about 1980 the picture is mixed. Flynn found the gains shrinking with age, turning into small losses for 14 and 15-year-olds. Studies of Piagetian reasoning tasks found 13 and 14-year-olds in 2000s England doing clearly worse than their 1970s counterparts (Shayer and Ginsburg, 2009). These are specific tests and age groups, not proof of a national decline.
Why national IQ figures are contested
Different tests
National figures combine different instruments, such as Raven's matrices, Wechsler scales and school assessments like PISA, taken in different years and converted to one scale. The 100 for the United Kingdom inherits every step of that conversion.Sampling
Some national estimates rest on small or unrepresentative samples, such as one city, school or age group. Reviews such as Wicherts, Dolan and van der Maas (2010) found that sample choices can move a country figure by many points.Education and health
Scores rise with years of schooling, nutrition, health care and familiarity with timed tests, so a national average partly measures those conditions rather than a fixed trait.The Flynn effect
Raw scores on many tests rose by roughly 3 points a decade during the 20th century (Flynn, 1987), and some countries have since seen plateaus or declines. The year a sample was tested changes the number.Not about individuals or ethnicity
The spread of scores inside the United Kingdom, as in any country, is far wider than the gap between countries. A national estimate says nothing about any person, and it is not evidence about ethnicity or genetics.
Average IQ in the United Kingdom: questions people ask
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What's your IQ?
Put your own number next to the UK average of 100.
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Sources
- Lynn, R., & Vanhanen, T. (2012). Intelligence: A Unifying Construct for the Social Sciences. Ulster Institute for Social Research (Table 2.1).
- OECD (2026). PISA 2025 Results, Volume I (Table I.1).
- OECD (2023). PISA 2022 Results, Volume I: The State of Learning and Equity in Education.
- OECD (2024). Do Adults Have the Skills They Need to Thrive in a Changing World? Survey of Adult Skills 2023.
- Flynn, J. R. (2009). Requiem for nutrition as the cause of IQ gains: Raven's gains in Britain 1938-2008. Economics and Human Biology, 7(1), 18-27.
- Shayer, M., & Ginsburg, D. (2009). Thirty years on, a large anti-Flynn effect? (II): 13- and 14-year-olds. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 79(3), 409-418.
- Wicherts, J. M., Dolan, C. V., & van der Maas, H. L. J. (2010). A systematic literature review of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans. Intelligence, 38(1), 1-20.
- Sear, R. (2022). "National IQ" datasets do not provide accurate, unbiased or comparable measures of cognitive ability worldwide. PsyArXiv.
Reviewed October 2026 by the LifeScore Editorial Team. Country averages say nothing about any individual.