My experience is that when flying to the UK the workload is always higher than when flying anywhere else in Europe. This is mainly due to ATC. As a relatively new FO it's hard to know what to "usually" expect from ATC the first couple of times when flying to a new destination. Never flown the whole STAR into any UK aerodrome.. ATC trying to get the most out of the airspace increases the workload on the flight crew making them more prone to mistakes.
Sometimes winds, weights and icing conditions make it pretty hard to lose speed/altitude.