The UK has dropped out of the list of the top 20 most generous countries in the world, according to the Charities Aid Foundation's World Giving Index 2024.

This year, the index has placed the UK in 22nd position - the same level as 2020, when charitable giving was severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UK's place in the index has been steadily in decline since 2014, when it was ranked the sixth most generous country in the world.

In 2014, the country achieved an overall score of 57%; a statistic that has since dropped down to 49% in 2024.

The CAF World Giving Index is one of the biggest surveys on giving ever produced, with this year’s research covering 142 countries and interviewing millions of people around the world since 2009.

This year, the most generous countries in the world are Indonesia, Kenya and Singapore.

Meanwhile, the UK’s score has fallen significantly in each of the three individual measures people are asked about.

In 2014, 75% in the UK donated money compared to 67% in this year’s report. Fewer people now help strangers (declining from 63% to 55%) and volunteer their time (32% falling to 26%).

The UK is also behind other high-income countries that saw a decline in their index score during the pandemic but returned to a high ranking in 2022.

This year’s top 10 includes the United States in sixth place and Australia in eighth, while Canada is 11th, Ireland is 15th and New Zealand is in 17th place.

In separate polling for the Charities Aid Foundation, only a quarter (25%) of the UK public thinks the country has become more generous over the last 100 years, while two in five (41%) think the UK's generosity has declined or was never especially generous to begin with.

“The long-term decline in the UK’s overall generosity shows we seem to have increasingly fallen out of the habit of giving - both our time and our money," CAF CEO, Neil Heslop said.

"Building a giving society is crucial to connect us to one another in communities and strengthen our social fabric.

“While we can still be a generous country even when times are so tough, more needs to be done to prevent this downward trend from continuing. We can learn from other countries that have taken proactive steps to harness charitable giving such as Singapore and Australia. That is why we are calling on the Government to lead a national strategy for philanthropy and charitable giving that renews our British culture of giving.”

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