Britain faces another blow to its confidence as new research reveals the UK and Ireland are the worse European destinations for a high quality of life while Spain tops the survey.

Comparisons website uSwitch.com has completed a study on 10 major European countries to reveal the best and worse locations for quality of life. The study revealed both the UK and Ireland performed the worse with Spain and France taking the glory.

The study focused on 19 areas including the price of fuel, the money spent on education and life expectancy.

As experts claim the UK is heading straight for a recession, news that we’re bottom of the Quality of Life survey is just a further blow to the British morale.

According to the research Brits may have the highest net income after tax (£35,730 against an average of £25,404) but we have to fork out for the highest diesel and second highest petrol prices in the study.

When healthcare is concerned the UK spends 8.1 percent less than the European average with 2.5 doctors available for every 1, 000 residents; compared to 3.4 in France and 3.5 in Germany.

Disturbingly the UK currently spends 5.5 percent GDP on education compared to 8.6 percent and what’s more the UK has aims to cut spending on education even further.

While Brits are witnessing high food bills, increasing on average £100 per week according to mySupermarket.co.uk the Danish are actually paying the most for their food with a basket of staple goods costing £163.22 compared to the average £135- whereas Brits are currently paying around £125 for the same goods including cereals, meat, fish and vegetables for example.

The low UK and Ireland performance have been blamed on inflation-boosted prices for fuel and other essential goods, below average government spending on health and education, short holidays and late retirement.

However Spain was rewarded with the top spot followed by France and then Germany. Spain boasted low taxation, low cost petrol costs, cheap food, the second highest spend on healthcare and the most hours of sunshine accompanied with a generous holiday allowance- a whopping 40 days.

What’s more the Spanish government is set to unveil a “Plan Save” energy initiative which will aim to cut energy use by 10 percent over two years. Such cuts will reduce Spain's dependence on imported energy and soaring world prices. Spain hopes to save five billion Euros from the scheme which will shrink their already low energy costs even further.

“We may earn substantially more than our European neighbours but, when it comes to quality of life, we remain the ‘sick man of Europe',” says Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uSwitch.com.

“With the global economy stuck between a rock and a hard place the Bank of England has already warned consumers to brace themselves for the most difficult economic conditions in two decades,” adds Robinson.

However the study claims Brits are already cutting back on their spending and if they continue to do so, shop around for must have financial services for the best deal possible then households could save £1500 in one year. Bills which the study claims we could reduce include gas, electricity, credit cards, car insurance, broadband, home phone packages, personal loans and our current accounts.