{"id":521940,"date":"2025-10-23T10:27:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/521940\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T10:27:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T10:27:24","slug":"britains-best-and-worst-cities-for-quality-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/521940\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s best (and worst) cities for quality of life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once the Roman capital of Britain, York<\/a> has a new claim as the country\u2019s most prosperous city \u2013 offering its citizens a great quality of life and good job options.<\/p>\n

It has come top in a report into Britain\u2019s cities\u2019 growth prospects, scoring highly for jobs \u2013 it has an unemployment rate of 1.6pc that compares with an average across the index of 3.8pc. York\u2019s adult and youth skills provision and take-up, good transport links, quality housing and bustling shopping streets also contributed to it coming out on top.<\/p>\n

The study, by Demos and PwC, ranks Britain\u2019s 50 biggest towns and cities \u2013 excluding London \u2013 by these metrics and others. These include crime rates, house prices<\/a>, earnings, healthcare facilities, quality of life and schooling, using local government data and a poll of residents on their priorities.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood growth\u201d, according to PwC, means a strong and growing local economy, with investment in housing, services, facilities and the public realm. In short, these are nice places to live.<\/p>\n

York rose up the rankings this year by six places and has been the most improved location in the top 10 since 2021.<\/p>\n

This small city punches above its weight, especially when it comes to tourism. \u201cYork is the city with the biggest visitor economy relative to its size and it\u2019s the only place where total visitor spending in the city centre is higher than the total residential spending,\u201d says Andrew Carter, of the Centre for Cities.<\/p>\n

He adds: \u201cPlaces like York where visitors make an outsized contribution to local economies are in the minority among the UK\u2019s towns and cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

York has other big businesses too. The FTSE 100<\/a> insurance company Hiscox is headquartered here, and Nestle owns the original Rowntree factory, which still produces KitKats, Aeros and Yorkies.<\/p>\n

The university is a major employer, as is the racecourse, and this summer Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, announced that a government hub, home to 2,000 civil servants, would be built within the York Central development.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

York has the biggest visitor economy relative to its size – Angela Serena Gilmour \/ Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Plus, York already has a healthy mix of residents, at different ages and life stages, says Ed Stoyle of Savills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see older couples returning from the villages and young families settling here for schooling. These two groups collide in York along with students. People commute to London, Leeds and Manchester.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edinburgh and Bristol came second and third in the study, followed by Exeter and Swindon. Completing the top 10 are Plymouth, Southampton, Reading, Portsmouth and Norwich. London was left out of the study as it compares more easily with other leading world cities rather than British regional cities, the author Paddy Schmidt explains.<\/p>\n

The best performing cities for growth this year are, mostly, the smaller, rural cities where quality of life scored highly, says Schmidt. \u201cThey tend to reflect the public priority of a good work-life balance, income distribution and safety, with a high number of shops open per person.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

Exeter came fourth in the ranking of best performing UK cities for growth – iStockphoto<\/p>\n

\u2018Overspill effect\u2019<\/p>\n

Emily Williams of Savills believes the top 10 reflects what she describes as an \u201coverspill effect\u201d \u2013 smaller cities and their surrounding areas which present better value for money and offer access to major employment hubs.<\/p>\n

For example, Swindon \u2013 which ranked fifth, and is actually a town \u2013 is becoming a more obvious choice for homebuyers wanting to work in Oxford (under an hour by car), or London (the fast train takes less than 50 minutes direct) \u2013 but without the house price tag.<\/p>\n

The demand is clear. It takes 47 days to sell a house here versus a 63-day average, according to Rightmove. The average house price in Swindon is \u00a3258,729, just under half as much as Oxford. The most popular locations for buyers are the characterful Old Town and the village of Wroughton on the south side of the city.<\/p>\n

The bottom 10 is dominated by vast urban centres, with large jobs markets and top-rated universities. Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle all feature, while Liverpool has slipped 11 places this year \u2013 mostly due to rising unemployment<\/a>. The metric of crime incidents per person pulls the other large cities down too.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig cities underperform,\u201d says Carter. Large cities such as Newcastle and Birmingham sit at the bottom of productivity rankings of G7 cities, he adds. Compared to cities such as Munich, the population of the UK\u2019s regional cities are smaller and there are fewer high-skilled and highly paid \u201cknowledge jobs\u201d and poor transport links for commuters. This all conspires to suppress productivity levels.<\/p>\n

b’<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

‘<\/p>\n

It also impacts the surrounding areas. \u201cThe poor performance of big cities minimises the economic opportunities available for smaller places nearby too. That means lower wages and lower living standards, and goes some way to explaining the economic inequality between the greater South East and the Midlands and north of England,\u201d he says. Eight of the top 10 are in the south of the country and eight of the bottom 10 are in the North or Midlands.<\/p>\n

The historic naval cities of Portsmouth and Plymouth both appear in the top 10, sixth and ninth respectively, despite having some of the most impoverished wards in the country. Fratton West in Portsmouth, for example, had one in four people<\/a> living on housing benefit last year.<\/p>\n

But there is seemingly a revival under way of these old shipbuilding ports<\/a>, where industry was once fading. Plymouth\u2019s economy has been delivered a \u00a3250m boost, named as one of five areas to receive funding in line with Labour\u2019s new defence industrial strategy.<\/p>\n

\"Plymouth\"<\/p>\n

Plymouth is one of five areas to receive funding through Labour\u2019s new defence industrial strategy – Thomas Faull\/E+<\/p>\n

The economy here is reliant on the ever-expanding defence and aerospace company Babcock. The company, which bagged a \u00a3114m deal for defuelling nuclear submarines in June, contributes \u00a31bn to the economy across the South West, supports 19,000 jobs and runs multiple skills and schools programmes.<\/p>\n

Other sectors are emerging in Portsmouth. \u201cPublic administration and defence make up the largest share of any sector of the local economy, but it has seen strong growth in both information and communication sectors and arts and entertainment of more than 25pc \u2013 suggesting an increasingly diversifying local economy,\u201d says Williams.<\/p>\n

Again, the port city has direct trains into London and Southampton yet offers cheaper housing in family-friendly areas such as Southsea right on the seafront.<\/p>\n

The report\u2019s top 10 would certainly indicate that \u201cgood growth\u201d and prosperity come down to housing costs and a favourable ratio between local employment opportunity and earnings, or easy commutability<\/a> and house prices.<\/p>\n

Oxford and Cambridge have slipped in the ranking this year as property values continue to soar, constrained by the restrictive surrounding green belt.<\/p>\n

The omission of London from the ranking could also be down to its escalating housing affordability crisis<\/a>. High housing costs can undermine growth in a city, posing a risk to the attraction or retention of talent and key workers and families \u2013 with a knock-on effect to the wider UK economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe unaffordability of housing is a national problem, not just a challenge for the place themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cToo few people can find homes located close to good jobs and this means cities are unable to play the role they should in the national economy as drivers of productivity,\u201d says Carter.<\/p>\n

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once the Roman capital of Britain, York has a new claim as the country\u2019s most prosperous city \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[169661,748,169662,110642,393,4884,111852,1269,131886,257,1144,47884,169663,712,169664,16,16919,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-521940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-andrew-carter","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-capital-of-britain","13":"tag-coming-out-on-top","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-growth-prospects","17":"tag-house-prices","18":"tag-local-economy","19":"tag-london","20":"tag-northern-ireland","21":"tag-quality-of-life","22":"tag-regional-cities","23":"tag-scotland","24":"tag-towns-and-cities","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-unemployment-rate","27":"tag-united-kingdom","28":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115423010012228136","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}