Wellbeing Dissertation Topics for UK Students, With Research Questions and Methods

Students sharing a conversation on a university lawn, generated using generative AI

What makes a good wellbeing dissertation topic? It says which kind of wellbeing you mean, names one group in one setting, and picks a measure that fits. “Student wellbeing” is a subject area. “Whether first-year commuter students report lower happiness than students in halls” is a topic you can finish by your submission deadline. Below are 70 topics in ten groups, each with a research question and a suggested method, followed by the UK data sources and scales that make them doable.

Wellbeing is an umbrella word. Two dissertations with the same title can measure different things, and markers notice when a project says “wellbeing” but uses a tool built for something else. That is why we start with what the word means in research, then move to topics you can defend to a supervisor.

If your interest is flourishing, strengths or happiness as a psychological theory, our positive psychology dissertation topics cover that ground, and bouncing back from adversity has its own list of resilience dissertation topics. The topics here are about wellbeing in a place, a workplace, a group of people or a policy.

What wellbeing means in a dissertation, and how it is measured

You will not find one agreed definition, and you do not need one. You need to state yours in a sentence and then pick a tool that matches it. The four tools below come up most often in UK student projects.

Tool	What it asks	Length and scoring	Worth knowing
ONS personal wellbeing (ONS4)	Life satisfaction nowadays, whether the things you do are worthwhile, happiness yesterday, anxiety yesterday	Four single questions, each scored 0 to 10	The ONS user guide says it is not appropriate to combine the four into one score. Report each one separately
Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS)	Mental wellbeing across a set of positively worded statements	14 items, with a 7-item short version (SWEMWBS)	Built from 2005 with NHS Health Scotland funding and finalised by an expert panel in 2007. Check the licence terms before you use it
WHO-5 Well-Being Index	How often you felt cheerful, calm, active, rested and interested in life over the past two weeks	5 items on a six-point scale; raw score 0 to 25, multiplied by 4 for a 0 to 100 score	The scoring sheet treats a raw score below 13 as a flag for low wellbeing. It is a screening cut-off, not a diagnosis
Five Ways to Wellbeing	Five actions: connect, be active, take notice, keep learning, give	A framework, not a scale	Published by the New Economics Foundation in 2008. Use it to design or evaluate an intervention, not to score people

The last row trips up a lot of students. The Five Ways are a set of actions, so they suit an intervention or evaluation project. They do not measure anything on their own. Read the original New Economics Foundation report, which the UK Government’s Foresight project on mental capital and wellbeing carries, and cite the 2008 source in your Harvard reference list.

Not sure whether to run a survey, interviews or an intervention? Our guide to choosing a research method for a wellbeing dissertation explains why those are not three equal choices and what each design lets you claim.

How to turn “wellbeing” into a topic you can finish

Write your definition in one sentence. “Wellbeing as how people rate their own happiness and anxiety” points to ONS4. “Mental wellbeing as feeling good and functioning well” points to WEMWBS. The sentence decides the tool.
Name the group and the setting. “Second-year nursing students on placement at one trust” is a sample. “Students” is not.
Check you can reach the evidence. That means participants and ethical approval in time, or a dataset you can download after registering.
Take two or three options to your supervisor. Our guide to how to choose a dissertation topic covers that conversation, and our dissertation research question examples show how to tighten a question once you have one.

Wellbeing dissertation topics by theme

Each topic has a research question and a suggested method. They are starting points: add your own university, programme, organisation or time period and the topic becomes yours. These topics were written for this list and are not taken from published studies, except where we name a real thesis or report.

Student wellbeing dissertation topics in UK higher education

These suit undergraduate and taught master’s projects, because you can recruit from your own cohort. One gap is worth knowing about. The national student survey we describe further down covers full-time undergraduates only, so postgraduate taught, part-time and mature students are easier to justify as a gap.

Halls and commuting. Research question: Do first-year students who commute report lower belonging and happiness than students in halls at one university? Method: survey using the ONS happiness item and a short belonging question, comparing the groups item by item.
International students in the first term. Research question: How do international postgraduate taught students describe their wellbeing in their first term, and what do they link it to? Method: interviews at two time points with thematic analysis.
Assessment weeks. Research question: How do daily happiness and anxiety ratings change across the assessment weeks of one term for second-year students? Method: short repeated survey over several weeks using the two ONS “yesterday” items.
Personal tutors. Research question: How do students describe the part personal tutors play in their wellbeing, and what do tutors say they can and cannot do? Method: paired sets of interviews with students and tutors.
Telling the department. Research question: What makes students more or less willing to tell their department about a mental health condition? Method: survey with open-text answers, or interviews, with a signposting plan in your ethics application.
Postgraduate taught students. Research question: How do SWEMWBS scores differ between one-year taught master’s students and undergraduates at one university? Method: cross-sectional survey with an independent-samples comparison.
Mature and part-time students. Research question: How do students aged 26 and over describe balancing study, work and family, and how do they link that balance to how they feel? Method: semi-structured interviews.

Psychology students can widen the angle with our psychology dissertation topics and health psychology dissertation topics.

Financial wellbeing research topics for students

The Money and Pensions Service describes financial wellbeing as feeling secure and in control of your money. That gives you a definition to test or challenge in your own sample.

Paid work and life satisfaction. Research question: Is the number of paid hours a week associated with life satisfaction among full-time undergraduates? Method: survey with correlation and regression, controlling for year of study.
Bills and everyday life. Research question: How do students describe cost-of-living worries affecting what they eat, where they study and how they feel? Method: semi-structured interviews.
What “in control of money” means. Research question: How do students define feeling secure and in control of their money, and does that match the Money and Pensions Service definition? Method: focus groups compared with the published definition.
Private renting. Research question: Do students in private rented housing report lower SWEMWBS scores than students in university accommodation? Method: cross-sectional survey.
Hardship funds. Research question: How do students who applied to a university hardship fund describe the process and its effect on how they feel? Method: interviews plus analysis of the fund’s published policy, with careful ethics because the topic is sensitive.
Attitudes to student debt. Research question: How do attitudes to student loan debt relate to anxiety ratings among final-year students? Method: survey using the ONS anxiety item and an attitude measure you can justify from the literature.
A money workshop. Research question: Does a short money-management workshop change students’ reported financial wellbeing compared with a waiting-list group? Method: before-and-after design with a comparison group.

Digital wellbeing dissertation topics

Screen-time projects are popular, so examiners expect a clear definition of “use” and a reason for your measure. Self-reported time is easy to collect but often inaccurate, so say so in your limitations.

Social media and daily mood. Research question: Is time spent on social media associated with happiness yesterday among first-year students? Method: survey using the ONS happiness item and a clear measure of use.
Scrolling versus messaging. Research question: Do students who mostly scroll report different wellbeing from those who mostly post or message friends? Method: survey with a group comparison.
Studying without a phone. Research question: How do students describe studying with and without their phones, and what do they say it does to how they feel? Method: short diary task followed by interviews.
Belonging in online sessions. Research question: How do students on blended modules describe belonging and wellbeing during online sessions? Method: interviews.
Late-night phone use. Research question: Is bedtime phone use associated with WHO-5 scores in undergraduates? Method: cross-sectional survey.
Wellbeing apps. Research question: Why do students stop using wellbeing apps that their university recommends? Method: semi-structured interviews.
Online groups for part-time students. Research question: How do part-time and commuter students use online groups for support, and what do they say those groups give them that campus does not? Method: interviews, with ethics approval if you use any public posts.

For a more social angle on the same ideas, see our social psychology dissertation topics.

Workplace and employee wellbeing dissertation topics

Hybrid working. Research question: Do employees on hybrid patterns report different SWEMWBS scores from fully office-based colleagues in one organisation? Method: cross-sectional survey, with a justified sample size.
Line managers. Research question: How do line managers describe their role in supporting staff wellbeing, and what training do they say they have had? Method: interviews with managers in one organisation.
Which wellbeing initiatives get used. Research question: Which wellbeing initiatives do employees in one organisation say they actually use, and why do others not? Method: short survey followed by interviews (explanatory sequential).
Out-of-hours messages. Research question: How do employees describe out-of-hours emails and messages, and what do they say it does to their evenings? Method: interviews.
Work and life satisfaction. Research question: Is satisfaction with work associated with overall life satisfaction among early-career graduates? Method: survey using the ONS life satisfaction item and a job satisfaction measure you can justify.
Shorter working weeks. Research question: What do published evaluations of shorter working week trials report about employee wellbeing, and how do they measure it? Method: scoping review with a clear search strategy.
Small employers. Research question: What wellbeing support do small and medium-sized employers offer when they have no dedicated HR team? Method: multiple case study using interviews with owner-managers.

Business and management students can pair these with our business psychology dissertation topics and human resource management dissertation topics.

NHS and healthcare wellbeing research topics

Research with NHS staff can need approval beyond your university’s own ethics process, so ask your supervisor early which route applies. If that timeline is too tight, keep the question and switch to published staff survey results, a document analysis or a review.

Feeling valued. Research question: How do staff in one healthcare team describe the link between workload, burnout and feeling valued? Method: interviews alongside the team’s published staff survey results, where available.
Working while unwell. Research question: Why do healthcare staff say they go to work when they do not feel well enough to perform their duties? Method: interviews with thematic analysis.
Student nurses across a placement. Research question: How does mental wellbeing change across a placement for second-year student nurses? Method: before, middle and end survey using SWEMWBS.
Manager or organisation? Research question: How do healthcare staff separate support from their line manager from support by the organisation? Method: interviews.
Healthcare support workers. Research question: How do healthcare support workers describe their wellbeing compared with how they think registered colleagues experience theirs? Method: interviews or focus groups.
Rest spaces on shift. Research question: Do staff who use a designated rest space during shifts report different wellbeing from those who do not? Method: short survey with a group comparison.
Allied health students on placement. Research question: How do physiotherapy or radiography students describe their wellbeing on placement compared with campus teaching? Method: focus groups, analysed thematically.

Nursing students can go further with our nursing dissertation topics, mental health nursing dissertation topics and occupational health nursing dissertation topics.

Teacher, school and child wellbeing dissertation topics

Research with under-18s needs stronger safeguards and longer approval. Many students keep it manageable by working with teachers and school staff, or with young adults looking back, or by using secondary data.

Teacher workload. Research question: What do teachers in one school say adds to and takes away from their wellbeing across a term? Method: interviews.
School leaders. Research question: How do headteachers and deputy heads describe looking after their own wellbeing? Method: semi-structured interviews.
Pupils define wellbeing. Research question: How do secondary pupils define wellbeing in their own words, and does it match the language in their school’s policy? Method: document analysis plus focus groups, with school permission.
Break and lunch times. Research question: How do pupils describe break and lunch times in relation to how they feel at school? Method: interviews or a simple mapping activity, with safeguarding approval.
The person who leads on wellbeing. Research question: What does the member of staff responsible for mental health and wellbeing in a school do day to day, and what limits them? Method: interviews.
Young people across waves. Research question: How have young people’s reported feelings about different parts of their lives changed across waves of Understanding Society? Method: secondary data analysis using UK Data Service access.
Applying to university. Research question: How do sixth-formers describe their wellbeing while applying to university? Method: interviews with 17 and 18 year olds, with school permission.

Related reading includes our educational psychology dissertation topics and childhood studies dissertation topics.

Physical wellbeing research topics

University sport. Research question: Do students who play regular university sport report higher happiness ratings than non-participants, after allowing for gender and year of study? Method: survey with regression.
Green space on campus. Research question: How do students describe time in green space on or near campus affecting how they feel? Method: walking interviews.
Sleep regularity. Research question: Is sleep regularity associated with WHO-5 scores around the exam period? Method: survey combined with a short sleep diary.
First-time parkrun participants. Research question: What do first-time parkrun participants say about the personal and social effects of taking part? Method: interviews.
Food on a tight budget. Research question: How do students describe the link between what they can afford to eat and how they feel? Method: interviews supported by a short food diary.
Activity data and wellbeing. Research question: What do national activity survey results show about activity levels and wellbeing measures among young adults in England? Method: secondary analysis, after checking which years and variables Sport England makes available.
Disabled students and university sport. Research question: What barriers and enablers do disabled students describe when trying to join university sport? Method: interviews.

Sport students should also look at our sports psychology dissertation topics.

Older adults, loneliness and community wellbeing topics

NHS England describes social prescribing as a way of linking people to community activities, groups and services that meet practical, social and emotional needs. A link worker gives the person time to shape a plan around “what matters to me?”. That makes it a rich, researchable setting.

Retirement and quality of life. Research question: Is retirement associated with change in quality of life among people aged 50 and over in England? Method: secondary analysis of English Longitudinal Study of Ageing waves.
Living alone. Research question: How is living alone associated with wellbeing among older adults in England? Method: secondary analysis of the same study, with a clear definition of “living alone”.
Link workers. Research question: How do social prescribing link workers describe the emotional demands of their role and the support they receive? Method: semi-structured interviews.
People who are referred. Research question: How do people referred to social prescribing describe changes in what matters to them? Method: interviews through a community partner, with ethics approval.
Staying in a group. Research question: Why do some people keep going to a community group after the first visit while others stop? Method: single case study using interviews and observation notes.
Care home workers. Research question: How do care home workers in one area describe their own wellbeing and the supports around them? Method: interviews.
Intergenerational projects. Research question: How do older and younger participants in an intergenerational project describe what they gained? Method: focus groups.

For clinical angles, see our geriatric nursing dissertation topics and community health nursing dissertation topics.

Wellbeing inequalities, place and policy in the UK

Many of these can be done from published material, which keeps ethical risk low. Where you do collect data, handle questions about disability, ethnicity or income with extra care.

Cost of living and wellbeing. Research question: What does published UK research say about the link between rising living costs and the wellbeing of low-income households? Method: scoping review.
Housing insecurity. Research question: What does published UK research report about housing insecurity and wellbeing, and how is each study measuring wellbeing? Method: systematic or scoping review.
Differences between areas. Research question: Do published wellbeing estimates differ between local areas in one region, and which area characteristics might help explain it? Method: comparison of published area-level estimates, after checking what ONS publishes for your region.
Disabled and non-disabled students. Research question: How do disabled and non-disabled students differ in reported wellbeing at one university? Method: survey with an independent-samples comparison, using your university’s own definitions of disability.
Belonging and campus culture. Research question: How do Black and minority ethnic students describe the way their university’s culture shapes how they feel on campus? Method: interviews with careful consent and anonymity.
What strategies say wellbeing is. Research question: How do UK government or local authority strategies define wellbeing, and what do they plan to measure? Method: document analysis.
Rural campuses. Research question: How do students at rural campuses describe transport and distance affecting their sense of isolation? Method: interviews.

Social science students may prefer to frame these with our sociology dissertation topics or public health dissertation topics.

Measurement, theory and evaluation topics

These are desk-based, and they can score well because they show you understand how the field works. Universities UK sets out a whole-university approach to mental health that includes collecting data to measure outcomes, and TASO has published a March 2026 report on evaluating wellbeing interventions with small cohorts. Both give you a framework to test.

Keeping the four ONS measures apart. Research question: How do published UK student surveys report the four ONS wellbeing measures, and do they keep them separate as the ONS user guide advises? Method: critical review of published reports.
WEMWBS or WHO-5? Research question: How do WEMWBS and the WHO-5 differ in what they capture, and what does that mean for choosing one in a student survey? Method: comparison of the scale content and published validation studies.
The Five Ways as an evaluation tool. Research question: How have the Five Ways to Wellbeing been used as an evaluation framework in UK community projects? Method: scoping review.
Whole-university strategies. Research question: How do UK universities’ published mental health strategies describe a whole-university approach, and how do they plan to measure results? Method: document analysis against the elements in the Universities UK framework.
Evaluating with small groups. Research question: How suitable are theory-based methods such as realist evaluation for assessing a student wellbeing programme with a small number of participants? Method: methodological case study drawing on TASO’s March 2026 report.
Whose job is wellbeing? Research question: How do employer wellbeing campaigns describe responsibility for wellbeing, as an individual task or an organisational one? Method: critical discourse analysis of a defined set of campaign materials.
“Yesterday” versus “nowadays”. Research question: Do students’ ratings of happiness yesterday vary more across a week than their ratings of life satisfaction nowadays? Method: repeated short survey over one week.

UK wellbeing data you can use without collecting your own

If ethical approval or recruitment worries you, secondary data is a legitimate route and examiners respect it when you justify the dataset. Check the access terms before you plan around any of these.

ONS personal wellbeing. The ONS publishes quarterly estimates of the four measures, seasonally adjusted and not. Its August 2026 release said the next one would follow in November 2026, so look for the newest before you cite it.
Understanding Society. The UK’s largest longitudinal household survey has followed a large sample since 2009. Its wellbeing variables include GHQ-12, SF-12, SWEMWBS and life satisfaction. An archived dashboard blog post describes them, but What Works Wellbeing closed in 2024, so confirm current access with Understanding Society and the UK Data Service.
English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing follows people aged 50 and over in England. It began in 2002 with 12,099 participants who are reassessed every two years. You can download the data from the UK Data Service after registering, though some datasets need a special licence.
Staff and student surveys. The national student, NHS staff, teacher and children’s surveys in the next section publish their findings openly, which suits a literature-style or document-based project.

One correction to a source you may see mentioned elsewhere. The What Works Centre for Wellbeing, once a popular evidence hub, stopped operating in 2024, and what remains online is a static archive. Use it for historical context, not as a live service.

Our guide to where to find positive psychology, wellbeing and resilience dissertations lists places to read finished theses, and our guide to how to read a published dissertation shows what to take from them.

Recent UK figures for your introduction

These come from official or established sources and help frame an introduction. Figures change with each release, so cite the edition you actually use and check for a newer one before you submit.

Students

The Student Academic Experience Survey 2026 from HEPI and Advance HE gathered 10,065 responses from full-time undergraduates between 6 January and 7 April 2026. It uses the four ONS wellbeing questions and sets them beside ONS figures for the general population, whose latest period available to the authors was July to September 2025. The authors caution that the two surveys differ in population, so compare carefully.

Measure	Students (2026)	UK adults (ONS, 2025)
Life satisfaction, scoring 9 to 10	15%	27%
Things done are worthwhile, scoring 9 to 10	20%	34%
Happiness yesterday, scoring 9 to 10	20%	36%
Low anxiety yesterday, scoring 0 to 1	15%	35%

The same report found that 65% of students do paid work during term time, averaging just under 14 hours a week. Some 22% had considered leaving their course, and the figure was 26% among students whose studies were disrupted by cost-of-living concerns, against 9% among those who were not disrupted. International students scored higher on three of the four wellbeing measures, with no difference on anxiety. All of these make good gaps and comparison points.

Staff, teachers and children

NHS staff. In the 2025 NHS Staff Survey, 31.47% of staff described themselves as burnt out, up from 30.26% in 2024, and 56.01% had gone to work in the previous three months while not feeling well enough to perform their duties, according to NHS Employers.
Education staff. Education Support’s Teacher Wellbeing Index 2025 surveyed 3,082 education staff in the UK between 6 June and 14 July 2025. It reported the lowest overall wellbeing since the index began in 2019, with 76% of staff and 86% of senior leaders feeling stressed.
Children and young people. The Children’s Society’s Good Childhood Report 2025 found that 9% of the children and young people who completed its survey had low wellbeing. A summary from the University of Essex adds that average happiness was significantly lower than when Understanding Society started, across all six aspects of life measured, including family.

Matching a wellbeing topic to your level

The same theme can be an undergraduate project or a PhD, depending on scope. Always check your module handbook, marking criteria and word limit before you narrow anything down.

Level	What suits it	Examples from the topics above
Undergraduate	One group, one scale or one small interview set, with low ethical risk	Halls and commuting; sleep regularity; a document analysis of school policies
Master’s	A clear gap, a justified sample and a firmer methodology chapter	Postgraduate taught wellbeing; hybrid working; a money workshop with a comparison group
PhD	An original contribution, theory development or several linked studies	Whole-university strategies; secondary analysis of longitudinal data; evaluating programmes with small groups

Two Durham University theses show how scale changes with level. Rosie Harris’s 2023 master’s thesis on belonging, mental wellbeing and help-seeking used a mixed-methods design, with a survey of 119 students plus interviews with nine students and three staff. Michael Priestley’s 2023 doctoral thesis on a whole-university approach to student wellbeing linked five studies, including a survey of 815 UK students, ten focus groups and nine stakeholder interviews. Read both abstracts to see how far a topic stretches between levels.

If you plan a survey, the choice of statistical test and the sample size are where projects most often wobble. Our statistics dissertation help covers that stage, and our PhD thesis help covers doctoral projects.

Ethics for wellbeing research

Questions about mood, anxiety or money can upset people, even in a short survey. Your ethical approval application should cover the following:

A clear information sheet that says people can stop or withdraw at any time.
A signposting list that includes your university’s wellbeing or counselling service, and a plan for what you will do if someone becomes upset.
A plan for scores. If you use the WHO-5, say what you will do if someone scores low, because you are not in a position to diagnose anyone.
Secure, anonymised storage for surveys, interview recordings and transcripts.

Topics involving children, health staff, or people in financial hardship usually take longer to approve. If you run out of time, keep the same question and switch to secondary data, a review or a document analysis.

Common questions

What are the five ways to wellbeing?

They are connect, be active, take notice, keep learning and give. The New Economics Foundation published them on 22 October 2008 as part of the UK Government’s Foresight project on mental capital and wellbeing. They are actions people can take, not a scale, so use them to design or evaluate an intervention.

Which scale should I use to measure wellbeing in a student survey?

Match the scale to your definition. The ONS questions let you compare your sample with national figures, one question at a time. WEMWBS or its seven-item short form gives one mental wellbeing score, subject to licence terms. The WHO-5 is short and asks about the past two weeks. Cite the original source for whichever you choose.

Can I compare my sample with national ONS figures?

Yes, but item by item, with the same question wording and a similar time period, and not as one combined score because the ONS advises against that. Say in your limitations that your sample and the national one differ in who they cover.

Can I write a wellbeing dissertation without collecting my own data?

Yes. Secondary analysis of a dataset such as Understanding Society or the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, a scoping review or a document analysis can all work, as long as you justify the choice and follow each source’s access rules. Ask your supervisor whether your module expects primary data.

How is a wellbeing topic different from a positive psychology or resilience topic?

They overlap, but the focus differs. Positive psychology topics lean on theory about flourishing and strengths. Resilience topics need a defined adversity and positive adaptation to it. Wellbeing topics usually start from a group, workplace or policy setting and a chosen measure. You can move between the three with our lists of positive psychology topics and resilience topics.

From topic to proposal

Found a wellbeing topic you like but not sure how to shape the question, pick the scale or plan the ethics? Tell us your topic and submission deadline and we will point you to the right kind of support, whether that is research proposal help, methodology help or literature review help. Nursing students can also ask about nursing dissertation help.

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