19 Best And Worst Places To Live In The UK - Does Your Hometown Make The Cut?

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