UK → Spain
Moving to Spain from Liverpool?
The honest version — the climate you'd actually be trading for, where Brits already settle, and how hard it is to get home. No brochure gloss: just SpainScore's climate normals, Spain's own population register and the real direct-flight map.
The climate you'd be trading for
Swap Liverpool for a typical Spanish city and, on the national picture, you're looking at 2 more hours of December daylight. But "Spain" isn't one climate — it runs from the wet Atlantic northwest to the dry Mediterranean southeast, so the honest answer depends on where:
- Vigo Galicia · Atlantic
vs Liverpool: 1.5 more hours of December daylight. mild, green and wet — Spain’s Atlantic northwest.
- Alacant Costa Blanca · Mediterranean
vs Liverpool: 2 more hours of December daylight. dry, warm and sunny — the Mediterranean southeast.
- Málaga Costa del Sol · Mediterranean
vs Liverpool: 2 more hours of December daylight. warm winters on the southern coast.
Climate deltas compare 1991–2020 normals for Liverpool (Meteostat) against the same 30-year measure for each Spanish anchor. Rounded to whole degrees and bucketed rain ratios on purpose — coarse enough that measurement noise can't flip the direction.
Where Brits actually settle
Not where a magazine says — Spain's own padrón register records the British nationals who lived here on 1 January 2022. Of about 270,689 Brits recorded in the 2,356 municipalities this table covers, these 8 hold the most:
| Municipality | Province | UK nationals | per 1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orihuela | Alicante/Alacant | 10,419 | 129 |
| Barcelona | Barcelona | 10,045 | 6.1 |
| Mijas | Málaga | 8,804 | 98.4 |
| Madrid | Madrid | 7,595 | 2.3 |
| Rojales | Alicante/Alacant | 5,802 | 342.4 |
| Fuengirola | Málaga | 5,507 | 66.2 |
| Marbella | Málaga | 5,232 | 34.7 |
| Estepona | Málaga | 4,838 | 65 |
These municipal nationality figures exist only for the 19 coastal, island, Madrid and Galicia provinces where Brits concentrate — 2,356 of Spain's 8,132 municipalities, together more than 90% of all UK residents. A town in any other province is blank here, which means “not in this 2022 table”, not zero.
Source: INE padrón continuo — residents by nationality, 1 January 2022 (the last all-town municipal nationality vintage). This is passport nationality, a different measure and year from the birth-country census figures used for the US, Dutch and Swedish pages. Big places top the list simply because they're big; the "per 1,000" column shows concentration. Linked names have a full town profile.
Getting back to Liverpool
Direct flights home run year-round from 10 Spanish airports:
- Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport (MAD)
- Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport (ALC)
- Almería Airport (LEI)
- César Manrique-Lanzarote Airport (ACE)
- Fuerteventura Airport (FUE)
- Gran Canaria Airport (LPA)
- Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)
- Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP)
- Seville Airport (SVQ)
- Tenerife Sur Airport (TFS)
Seasonal (mostly summer): Ibiza (IBZ), Menorca (MAH), Palma de Mallorca (PMI), Reus (REU).
Direct-route map from SpainScore's airport dataset (Spanish-departure scheduled routes). "Getting home easily" is one of the things the quiz can weight for you.
So where in Spain — for you?
Climate, compatriots and flights are three inputs. Your budget, whether you need short medical waits, a city or a village, winter sun or mild summers — those decide the rest. The 3-minute quiz scores all 8,132 Spanish municipalities against what you care about.
Updated 2026 · SpainScore