Bristol has been named among the best places to live and work in the UK, according to the PwC 2024 Good Growth for Cities Index. The Index named Plymouth as the highest performing city, with Bristol rising to second place, and Southampton remaining in third.
These three cities are said to have scored particularly highly in the categories of income distribution, work-life balance, jobs and skills. The annual Index ranks 51 of the UK’s largest cities, generally considered those with populations of at least 350,000 people, plus the London boroughs as a whole – all based on the public’s assessment of 12 economic measures, including jobs, health, income, safety and skills, work-life balance, housing, travel-to-work times, income equality, high street shops, environment and business start-ups.
And, in fact, cities across the South West region lead the latest Index. In addition to Plymouth and Bristol’s high rankings, Swindon and Exeter were also listed among the highest performing cities. However, the region’s cities scored less well in the categories of new businesses and house price-to-earnings, in relation to the rest of the UK.
Overall, the figures showed that Bristol’s score has increased from 0.54 in 2023 to 0.59 in 2024. Jobs increased from 0.59 to 0.85, skills from 1.64 to 2.10, income distribution from 0.80 to 1.00, transport from -0.13 to 0.24, environment from 0.54 to 0.56) and work-life balance from 1.18 to 1.46.
Declines came in the categories of income (0.23 to 0.18), health (0.66 to 0.57), housing (-0.62 to -0.81), new businesses (-0.29 to -0.30), safety (0.57 to 0.55) and high streets and shops (0.35 to 0.27).
According to the Index: “As the UK economy shows signs of recovery, economic bounce back is expected this year and into 2025, with cities home to high growth sectors such as transportation & storage, public sector and defence, and construction, set to perform well. These include Cardiff, Ipswich and London, which are expected to see some of the strongest growth of over 1.1% in 2024 and 1.9% in 2025.
“London is expected to be the best performer of the 51 cities due to its strong performance forecast for the technology, professional and administrative services sectors – all expected to see growth upward of 2.9% in 2025. Some of the current Index’s best performing cities, such as Plymouth, Bristol and Swindon, are forecast to have relatively average outlooks for 2024, consistent with lower performing cities such as Walsall, Birmingham and Nottingham.
“For those cities projected to see the highest growth, much of this is down to a higher proportion of their economies being based in higher growth sectors, and the draw these sectors can have on investment, bringing more businesses, people, developers – and ultimately economic growth – to an area.”