Londoners 'are the best at maths'

Londoners are better at maths than people in any other part of the country, new research suggests.

More than 30 per cent of Londoners answered a maths question correctly in a test set by the National Numeracy charity - a higher percentage than in any other region.

Londoners are also more likely to rate their own maths skills as excellent or good than anywhere else.

It comes as the National Numeracy charity issued a warning that people in the UK are so bad at maths they cannot work out dietary guidelines.

Only one quarter of people across the UK were able to work out the numbers behind the information on food labels, according to a survey by the charity.

Around 2,000 people were shown a chocolate bar label containing the amount of sugar the chocolate contained in grams and as a percentage of the total daily allowance.

They were asked to choose which of six options came nearest to the total daily sugar allowance - a GCSE level question.

While 31 percent of Londoners answered correctly, just 18 per cent got the question right in Wales and 21 per cent in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Women were also less likely to answer correctly, with just 18 per cent getting the answer right compared with 36 per cent of men.

National Numeracy Chief Executive Mike Ellicock said: “The maths you need for everyday life isn’t particularly complicated. But you do need to be able to apply it in all sorts of ordinary situations, whether that’s looking after your health, understanding food labels or working out the best deals in supermarkets.

“Good numeracy skills are clearly necessary for managing health and diet and yet – as this survey suggests – too many people aren’t confident with the numbers.”

Gill Rowlands, Professor of General Practice, Institute of Health and Society at Newcastle University, said: “People need to be able to understand and use numbers to make decisions about their health. The finding that only one in every four people could understand the sugar information in a nutrition label is particularly important given current World Health Organisation warnings on the rising levels of obesity and diabetes.

“We need to raise awareness of the importance of health literacy, including numeracy skills, amongst the public, education providers and health services, and work together to improve numeracy skills for health.”