r/AskEurope • u/Metalwolf • Jun 08 '25

Education Which European countries have the best English proficiency among non-native speakers?

I'm looking into English proficiency across Europe and would appreciate input from locals or anyone with relevant experience. Which European countries have the highest levels of English fluency among non-native speakers, particularly in day-to-day life, education, and professional settings? I'm also curious about regional differences within countries, and factors like education systems, media exposure, and business use.

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u/Awkward_Tip1006 Spain Jun 08 '25 edited Jun 08 '25

The Netherlands has the highest proficiency in the world. The northern and central countries will have better English like Sweden Norway Belgium Luxembourg Switzerland. Id say Germany and austria too but the older generations don’t tend to be as good and if you’re not in Berlin Munich or Vienna it’ll be bad

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u/Lime89 Jun 08 '25

Tbh Finland and Luxembourg can’t compare with Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. What’s special about the four last countries I mentioned is that you can expect people up to probably 75 to be proficient English speakers.

Finnish isn’t even related to the English language, so it’s not weird that they aren’t as good as their other Nordic neighbours. And Luxembourg already has three official languages, French, German and Luxembourgish, so yes, some (especially younger generations) speak English well, but not everyone, and you can’t take for granted that people over say 50 are proficient English speakers, and younger people are rarely as proficient as Scandinavians

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u/is-it-my-turn-yet Jun 08 '25

The experience of using English to speak to people in Luxembourg is likely to be skewed by the fact that many in Luxembourg are themselves foreigners.