19 Best And Worst Places To Live In The UK - Does Your Hometown Make The Cut?
Warning: this may make you want to move....
Warning: this may make you want to move....
In case you’ve been thinking recently about how to make your daily slog to and from work that much easier, the best places to live and work in the UK have now been revealed.
The Berkshire town of Reading has officially topped the list as the best spot in the country for economic growth and well-being, followed by Oxford, Edinburgh and Cambridge which also crack the second, third and fourth spots respectively.
However things aren’t looking good for the Londoners as the capital city has been deemed the third worst place to live in the UK, preceded only by Wakefield and Middlesbrough.
The report cited London’s expensive transport, congestion charges, poor work-life balance and intense working conditions as reasons for out-performance by other UK cities.
So in case you were thinking of up and moving to the bright lights - don’t.
The research, carried out by PwC and think-tank Demos, was published in The 2015 Good Growth for Cities Index, an annual report in its fourth year which measures the performance of the UK’s largest cities against ten categories.
Criteria for deciding the best places to live and work included: housing affordability, employment rates, income and skills, commuting times and environment.
The report also highlighted the widening economic divisions between the North and South of the country and examined the effect of the ’The Northern Powerhouse’ - a plan for government to devolve powers and businesses to the North of the country.
However the report suggested that cities in devolved administrations such as Aberdeen Preston and Cardiff did score higher than the UK average for all combined factors, and were ranked 5th, 12th and 17th for potential growth overall.
See the national rankings in full below:
19 Best Cities For Growth & Well-being
1. Reading & Bracknell
2. Oxford
3. Edinburgh
4. Cambridge
5. Aberdeen
6. Southampton
7. Bristol
8. Belfast
9. Leicester
10. Coventry
11. Portsmouth
12. Preston
13. Norwich
14. Swindon
15. Milton Keynes & Aylesbury
16. Plymouth
17. Cardiff
18. Brighton
19. Stoke-on-Trent
19 Worst Cities For Growth & Well-being
1. Wakefield & Castleford
2. Middlesbrough & Stockton
3. London (Boroughs Only)
4. Sunderland
5. Liverpool
6. Bradford
7. Birmingham
8. London
9. Swansea Bay
10. Maidstone & North Kent
11. Hull
12. Southend & Brentwood
13. Newcastle & Durham
14. Sheffield & Rotherham
15. Manchester
16. Glasgow
17. Wirral & Ellesmere Port
18. Warrington & Wigan
19. Nottingham
Where would you live? Tweet us @marieclaireuk
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