When Dominique van Werkhoven moved to Vienna, she was struck by the contrast with the UK.
Van Werkhoven, 40, moved to the Austrian capital with her husband and their three children for four years from 2020.
Having lived for years in London, she said she found Austria to be a generally “happier, healthier place than in the UK”, citing Vienna’s family-friendly policies, ease and affordability of transport, and its access to nature.
The Austrian capital has long been known as one of the most liveable cities in the world. It came first, according to a ranking of 173 cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit from 2022 to 2024, and second last year, only behind Copenhagen in Denmark.
The ranking was put together over two decades ago, initially in response to demand from companies posting executives internationally.
“They wanted to know whether they needed to offer a hardship fund,” Ana Nicholls, from the Economist Intelligence Unit, told The i Paper. “Now, it’s much more about cities attracting investment, so our data are now focused on what it’s like for locals and international expats to live there.”
Vienna ranks so highly thanks to its high scores on five major points: stability, both political and personal; healthcare availability; culture and environment; education availability, both private and state; and infrastructure, such as transportation, water systems, and broadband.
‘It’s so easy to get around this city – unlike London’
“The transport then gives you access to parks and outdoor spaces,” Van Werkhoven said. “They are easy to get to, and gorgeous. In London, I wasn’t an outdoors person, but in Vienna, I was outside all the time.”
Nicholls said “a lot of policy has focused on transport” in Vienna, with architecture conducive to good transport. “A lot of Vienna was rebuilt in the late 19th century with big, wide boulevards, so you have plenty of room for cycle networks and trams,” she said, noting that transport systems were not overwhelmed because the city was not “at capacity.” She added: “It doesn’t feel frenetic, unlike London.”
Trams are a convenient and environmentally friendly way to get around the city (Photo: Sarah Bishop)Sarah Bishop agrees. A Londoner by birth, she moved to Vienna in 2021 to live with her Austrian partner. Back when she lived in Wolverhampton, she had to rely on her car due to the unreliability, inconvenience, and price of public transport in the UK.
Now in Vienna, her car is nearly always parked in their apartment complex garage. “The public transportation is a joy,” Bishop, 53, told The i Paper. “It’s reliable, extensive, and affordable. For €365 [£316] annually, you can get unlimited public transport in the greater city limits.”
She frequently visits the old Danube, a former course of the main river that is now a lake, sometimes taking an electric boat out in the warm weather, before jumping into the “always very clean” water for a swim.
Events in the city are “highly subsidised,” allowing the “average Joe” to enjoy things like the opera, sailing, and music events, she said.
‘Equality reduces crime’
When it comes to housing, Bishop says social and privately rented accommodation is plentiful, making it easy to find a home in the city – not something that can be said about London, which is consistently ranked as one of the most expensive cities in the world.
“There are lots of protections for tenants, and they take care of their properties more than in the UK,” she said. “Because people stay here, and they’re not as transient [because they love it so much], people look after their cities and homes as if they were their own.”
The first thing she noticed when she arrived in the city was the bins. And while it might seem insignificant, to Bishop, it reflected residents’ and the local government’s pride in their city. “There are street cleaners out all the time,” she said. “There are also dog poo bags for free, provided all over the city. Cleanliness is a big thing here.”
Bishop says Vienna’s public transport is ‘reliable, extensive, and affordable’; the Hofburg former imperial palace in the city centre (Photos: Sarah Bishop; Westend61/Getty)Although inequality exists, she says she sees less of it in Vienna as compared with the cities she lived in while in the UK. The result? Less crime.
“Equality reduces crime,” she said. “I would walk around here any time. I wouldn’t have done that in London.”
Nicholls told The i Paper that Vienna’s crime rates were generally lower than in British cities, but noted that two foiled terrorist plots against the city – targeting a Taylor Swift concert and at a railway station – had pushed Vienna behind Copenhagen in the 2025 Liveability Index.
Healthcare rankings, however, scored perfect marks. “Vienna has always ranked high partly because healthcare availability is great,” Nicholls said. “Austria has a social insurance system that effectively provides free healthcare at the point of use for citizens. There are a few highly regarded hospitals, and they have a lot of polyclinics (combined benefits of GP and services at specialist clinics).”
Bishop, who has Austrian residency, pays €100 (£87) monthly for private health insurance, which provides efficient care. She said that after finding a tumour she immediately received MRI scans, a lung function test, full blood tests, a colonoscopy, and an ultrasound, before having surgery the next month.
“I had surgery with two leading surgeons present and was kept in for a week. And the bill for that was €180 [£156],” she said.
If she, as someone over 50, ever suffers with any chronic conditions like asthma or burnout, she can access subsidised health retreats. If GPs provide a referral, she could go for free.
“My experience of the healthcare system here has been excellent,” she said. “Perhaps in part down to the advantage of being in the EU and attracting outside medical professionals, free medical school for EU citizens, and having the AKH [Vienna General Hospital], the fifth-largest teaching hospital in Europe. Austria also spends much more per capita on healthcare than the UK.”
Van Werkhoven and her family at a Christmas market in the city (Photo: Dominique van Werkhoven)Austria’s family-friendly policies
Perhaps of most significance for people hoping to start a family are the family-friendly policies, including parental leave and affordable nurseries. Mothers and fathers in employment in Austria are entitled to parental leave up to the child’s second birthday.
After the birth of her third child, Van Werkhoven had one year of full pay off work. Her other two children were enrolled into private, and then state nurseries.
“We first sent them to a private kindergarten, and were paying €250 [£217] a month for each of them,” she said. “It was five days a week and included warm meals. We then put them in a state kindergarten, and got the same quality of education, and were paying €80 [£69] a month for each of them. It facilitated me being able to go back to work.”
During the nine-week school holidays, the city organised summer city camps for primary school-aged children for only €60 (£52) a week per child.
“It made being a working parent much easier, and it isn’t support so readily available in the UK,” she said.
‘There is less tolerance for difference here’
However, there were downsides to living in Austria. What led Van Werkhoven to eventually leave was a specialist health treatment and access to mainstream schooling for their second son, who has one arm that is shorter than the other.
“Even people who are Austrian tell us how challenging it is to defend your child if they’re different,” she said. “It’s easier for us to advocate for him in Dutch. We couldn’t navigate the system because we couldn’t conform to their system.”
She also pointed out that there was far less tolerance of difference in Vienna, especially around skin colour, which she noticed often as a black woman.
Van Werkhoven felt there was less tolerance of difference in Vienna (Photo: Dominique van Werkhoven)“Although Vienna is an international city, there is this fascination with what is different,” the 40-year-old told The i Paper. “Whereas in London, there isn’t a normal.”
Nearly half – 46.2 per cent – of London residents identified with Asian, black, mixed or other ethnic groups in 2021. Roughly half of Vienna’s population was born abroad or had both parents born abroad, although this data did not record the race of residents.
Van Werkhoven said that on the outskirts of Vienna, she was often stared down because of the colour of her skin. “It’s a multicultural city, but it isn’t multiracial,” she said.
And although she learnt German while living there, she remembers the stares she received if she spoke English. “I might be speaking English with my boys on public transport, and someone would tell me I should be speaking German because we were in Austria,” she said.
Despite that, Van Werkhoven still thinks back on her days in Vienna with fondness. “It was just such a nice, happy time,” she said.
Bishop added that while Austria was not perfect, “they seem to be getting a lot more right than at home”.
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