Spainability rankings · Updated July 2026
Best places in Spain for British remote workers
For a working-age UK couple earning remotely — sun, coast, hospitals, London flights, and UK nationals nearby.
Ranked among towns with a full published Spainability profile where we hold UK-national Padrón data (19 provinces). Retiree rankings use a different persona.
Related: Best places for British retirees , Where British people actually live (census map) and Towns with largest international communities .
The ranking
-
129 UK nationals per 1,000; only 31 rainy days a year; direct flights to london.
Honest tradeoff: ranks low on local prosperity.
-
136.5 UK nationals per 1,000; only 35 rainy days a year; direct flights to london.
Honest tradeoff: ranks low on local prosperity.
-
294 UK nationals per 1,000; only 34 rainy days a year; direct flights to london.
Honest tradeoff: ranks low on affordable cost of living (registered rent €/m²·mo).
-
Only 31 rainy days a year; direct flights to london; 13.1°C average winters.
Honest tradeoff: ranks low on affordable cost of living (registered rent €/m²·mo).
-
19.7°C average winters; only 14 rainy days a year; 73.5 UK nationals per 1,000.
Honest tradeoff: ranks low on affordable cost of living (registered rent €/m²·mo).
-
Only 30 rainy days a year; 14°C average winters; direct flights to london.
Honest tradeoff: ranks low on low historical wildfire exposure.
-
Only 25 rainy days a year; 14.1°C average winters; direct flights to london.
Honest tradeoff: ranks low on brits nearby.
-
117.6 UK nationals per 1,000; low cost of living (registered rent ~€3.42/m²·mo); 15 km from the sea.
Honest tradeoff: ranks low on local prosperity.
How we ranked this
We answered our own 17-question quiz as a British couple in their working years earning remotely in Spain — they want sun and warmth, the coast nearby, good hospital access, easy flights back to London, and some fellow UK nationals in the community. Then we ran every one of Spain's 8,132 municipalities through the same scoring engine the quiz uses, and kept the top-ranked towns with a full published Spainability profile.
- Data INE census (population, origins), AEMET climate normals, regional PISA scores, and the Health Ministry's SISLE waiting lists — each town compared against the Spanish average.
- Reproducible Feed the same persona into our engine and you get this exact order. No hand-picking, no affiliate deals.
- Data completeness A town is excluded from this ranking if it's missing data for any of its key factors (brits nearby, few rainy days a year and mild winters) — we don't let a data-sparse town float to the top on the factors it happens to have. 134 otherwise-eligible towns were excluded here for missing that data.
- Spainability Score Each town's British-remote Spainability Score is its percentile among the 8,131 municipalities we could score for this profile — a score of 88 means it fits better than 88% of them. It's the same per-persona percentile shown on that town's own page. How Spainability works →
- What we don't score We don't score visa paperwork, UK tax residency, or how English-friendly local shops are — only climate, coast, hospital drive-time, direct-flight reach to London, broadband proxy and UK-national counts on the municipal register.
Compare the top 8
| # | Town | Winter avg | Summer high | UK nationals /1,000 | Drive to hospital | Coast |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Orihuela | 13.1°C | 30.8°C | 128.97 | 0 min | 20 km |
| 2 | Mazarrón | 11.7°C | 34.9°C | 136.53 | 0 min | 16 km |
| 3 | Mojácar | 11.7°C | 33.6°C | 294.01 | 47 min | 6 km |
| 4 | Torrevieja | 13.1°C | 30.8°C | 56.52 | 0 min | 5 km |
| 5 | Adeje | 19.7°C | 28.3°C | 73.47 | 0 min | 8 km |
| 6 | Cartagena | 14°C | 30.1°C | 10.88 | 0 min | 4 km |
| 7 | Níjar | 14.1°C | 30.9°C | 3.14 | 30 min | 10 km |
| 8 | Órgiva | 8.6°C | 34.5°C | 117.6 | 33 min | 15 km |
Values from the Spainability dataset (INE / AEMET / regional sources). "no data" = we don't have that number for this town and never guess it.
Questions
Where do British remote workers live in Spain?
Many cluster on the Costa Blanca and Costa del Sol — the same coastal provinces as retirees — but working-age settlers often favour larger towns with coworking and flights (Valencia, Málaga, Alicante). This list ranks audited towns for a remote-earning UK couple's full profile.
How is this different from your British retirees list?
The retiree list assumes pension income, must-close healthcare and a buy budget. This list assumes remote earnings, reasonable (not must-close) healthcare and renting first — so the order shifts toward connectivity and mid-size towns.
Does this include digital-nomad visa towns?
We don't score visa types directly. We score the same climate, cost, hospital and community factors the quiz uses — take the quiz with your own passport and income for a personalised order.
This is a generic British remote-working couple
Get your ranking, not this one →
This list scores one representative persona. Answer a dozen honest questions and we score all 8,132 municipalities against your priorities — climate, cost, healthcare, community, getting home — with the tradeoffs shown as plainly as the wins.
Take the 3-minute quiz →Last updated: July 2026 · Next update: on INE's next census release (expected 2027).
Re-generated from the Spainability dataset on each data release — the ranking is reproducible, not editorial.