2022 in data - what we learned about how people's lives have been impacted in numbers
How much did political turmoil cost the UK taxpayer? Was this summer the driest on record? What impact has Russia's invasion had on Ukraine's energy infrastructure? Here are some of the most impactful data stories from this year.
Wednesday 28 December 2022 13:45, UK
From the crisis in the NHS to the rising cost of living, data has been at the heart of the news agenda this year.
Here are a few of the data stories that made an impact.
Ukraine
We used data to track and map the changes in territory, enabling us to see how Russia's advances slowed in mid-March, after rapid gains early on the invasion.
In recent weeks, satellite data has shown how Russia has pushed Ukraine's energy system to the brink through wave after wave of attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Images from NASA, shared exclusively with Sky News, show how Ukraine's capital has gone dark since Russia's invasion began in February.
Cost of living
The war in Ukraine had global ripple effects, increasing energy prices and turbocharging inflation across the world.
In the UK, inflation hit a forty-year high.
We built a spending calculator so that people could track how much more expensive their shopping basket has become.
This revealed everything from the regional differences in price of a pint of beer to how the price of womenswear is increasing much more rapidly than menswear.
Rising prices fed through to the housing market, stretching household budgets for renters.
Even before the hike in interest rates, our analysis showed that buying a home is a pipe dream for many people: you'd have to go 450 years without Netflix to save enough for the deposit for the average UK home.
UK politics
More people blamed Liz Truss for rising interest rates than blamed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to a Sky News poll in November.
Her mishandling of the economy meant that she made history by becoming the shortest serving UK prime minister.
Boris Johnson also spent a relatively short time in office, but despite this had more resignations than any prime minister in modern British parliamentary history.
Sky News analysis found that the political turmoil came at a hefty price for the taxpayer.
Between the start of the year and the end of Ms Truss's time in office, 79 government ministers and whips had either been sacked or resigned, with the exchequer paying out more than £700,000 in severance payments to former ministers and whips.
NHS
The chaos in government has left the NHS in crisis.
Sky News analysis found that it was in a worst state this summer than any winter on record, failing to meet its own targets for waiting times in A&E, routine operations or cancer.
The last prime minister to inherit a health service that met any of these targets was David Cameron, 12 years ago. Since then, each Conservative leader has inherited an NHS in a worse condition than under their predecessor.
The health system is under added pressure from the failing social care sector, which Sky News analysis found was straining from a shortage of funding and a rising need long before the pandemic revealed a system in crisis.
Climate
Extreme temperatures have also led to adverse health outcomes.
Sky News found that almost 900 more people died in England during three days of the late-July heatwave than usually do at that time of year.
It was an exceptionally hot summer, with one in seven counties experiencing the driest July on record, according to our analysis of Met Office data.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.