Swedes are no longer the world's best non-native English-speakers

Sweden lost the top spot to The Netherlands in the EF English Proficiency Index 2019, a ranking of 100 countries and regions by English skills. The report is based on a comparison of English skills measured by testing 2.3 million people in 100 countries, ranking their proficiency from "very high" to "very low".

Scandinavians in Top 5

Fellow Scandinavian nations Norway and Denmark, followed by Singapore, were awarded the other top five places in the index.

Sweden has maintained a top five position in the nine years the survey has been published, and was number one in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018. However, based on the total score for 2019 (68.74), it is Sweden's worst performance in five years.

English Language skills were also measured by region and by gender and by region, showing the following results:

English by Gender in Sweden 

Swedish women outperformed men, with a score of 69.44 compared to the male 67.45.

English Proficiency by Region

Illustrations: EF

Fourteen countries awarded high ranking

In addition to the top 5, a further 9 countries were placed in the “very high” English language skills category: South Africa, Finland, Austria, Luxembourg, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Belgium and Croatia. You can download the full report here https://www.ef.se/epi/

The London School of English offers high quality English language training for motivated adults from all professional backgrounds. We give you the tools and skills you need to communicate successfully in your field of expertise and to expand your business and career opportunities. Call us on +46 8 5999 4000 or email us at [email protected] for more information about our tailored tuition or simply take our online test to check your English level.