Actually the UK has had a ridiculous number of resources despite its small size. It had good mineral wealth from coal to copper to tin (which was mined in the region before the Roman Empire) to some oil and so on. A lot of that is depleted but its mineral wealth contrasts with the Japanese home islands which had little. It has some decent arable land (although it keeps building on it) and better rainfall than some areas.

It also seems to be blessed with few natural disasters such as major earthquakes, volcanoes, larger tornadoes etc.