North of England has fastest improving cities

Whilst the highest ranked cities tend to be in the South of England, the top 10 improvers in PwC’s 2017 index suggest that the North of England and the Midlands are narrowing the gap.

The latest Good Growth for Cities Index measures the performance of 42 of the UK’s largest cities, England’s Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) and the new Combined Authorities against ten indicators based on the views of the public as to what is key to economic success and well-being. These include employment, health, income, skills, housing affordability, commuting times and environmental factors, among others.

Among the highest ranking cities were Oxford and Leeds, which joint first, Reading and Birmingham, which came second, Southampton and Leicester, which came third, and Edinburgh and Newcastle, which came fourth.

The index shows that all 42 cities improved their score relative to the 2016 index, driven primarily by increasing employment. In general, those cities that have seen the biggest improvements in their overall score have also experienced particularly large falls in unemployment in recent years.

John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, said: “The UK has been a great job-creating machine in recent years and this has driven improvement in our good growth index this year across all major UK cities. On average across the UK, the index is now at its highest level since it began in 2006 and all regions have benefited from this upturn.

“But there has also been a price to pay for this in terms of worsening housing affordability, increased average commuting times and more people having to work long hours. The cities that are highest ranked on the index also tend to suffer the highest price of success.”

Paul Terrington, PwC head of regions, said: “We’ve seen broad-based improvements in our good growth index across the UK, driven in particularly by falling unemployment rates. Some areas that had lagged behind in the recovery from the financial crisis are now showing clear improvements, so it's clear that the recovery is now spreading across the entire UK.

“However, we are also seeing the price of prosperity in terms of growing pressures on scarce resources of housing, transport and skills. If the regional cities are to sustain the strong recovery and performance of recent years, it will be critical to address these challenges as part of cities’ growth strategies, rather than trying to fix the problems when they become constraints on growth.”