Manchester rises to third in LSH vitality index

The city climbed from ninth to third in Lambert Smith Hampton’s UK Vitality Index for 2018, released this week, which also revealed Macclesfield as another impressive North West performer.

The index is an annual assessment of which towns and cities outside London are best-placed to support business growth, looking at factors such as entrepreneurialism, productivity, population changes, wage growth and levels of education.

It is put together by pulling together information from 20 different datasets, using sources such as the Office for National Statistics, the Department for Education, DEFRA, Experian and CACI. The 66 largest UK locations outside the capital are covered.

For the third year running, Cambridge came out on top, but Manchester’s climb of six places made it the strongest performer of the core cities. It was ranked as the fifth most entrepreneurial city, tenth in productivity, and was ranked second in the fastest-growing list.

Macclesfield was ranked joint eighth most entrepreneurial, and tenth in the ‘growing affluence’ table. No North West location made the top ten in ‘The Greenest’ list or the most highly educated ranking.

LSH said that a large part of Manchester’s improved performance in the ranking came as a result of the workforce seeing wages increase by 8% over the last two years compared to the UK average of 4%.

Overall, the top 10 towns and cities in the UK Vitality Index 2018 are:

1. Cambridge
2. Oxford
3. Manchester
4. Brighton & Hove
5. Edinburgh
6. Guildford
7. Bristol
8. Reading
9. Milton Keynes
10. St Albans

Isabel Watterson, senior analyst at LSH, said: “While Cambridge has stolen the headlines again, the most striking result this year is the meteoric rise of Manchester.

“The unofficial capital of the Northern powerhouse is really cementing its position as the UK’s second city, boasting a growing reputation as a hotbed for creative talent and new businesses. Manchester also led a tangible improvement across the Northern Powerhouse, with Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool’s rankings all improving upon last year.”

The full report is available here.