South West cities lead PwC’s 2024 Good Growth for Cities Index

Cities across the South West of England lead PwC’s 2024 Good Growth for Cities Index, with Plymouth and Bristol the highest and second-highest performing cities respectively. The 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, based on the public’s assessment of 12 economic measures, including jobs, health, income, safety and skills, as well as work-life balance, housing, travel-to-work times, income equality, high street shops, environment and business startups.

Plymouth’s strong improvement from sixth to first in the Index is due to high scores on work-life balance, income distribution and jobs. Similarly, Bristol - which rose two places to second on the Index - performs well on jobs and work-life balance, as well as skills. The South West’s cities score less well on new businesses and house price-to-earnings relative to the rest of the UK.

The report identifies public administration and defence as one of the highest-growth sectors in 2024, growing at 2.2%. Both Plymouth and Bristol are noted for their Defence hubs, with HMNB Devonport in Plymouth anchoring a rich ecosystem of marine and defence companies and the MOD Abbey Wood complex in Bristol being home to the Submarine Delivery Agency and Defence Equipment & Support, and the South West nuclear energy with EDF Energy in Gloucester and the Hinkley C project.

As the UK economy shows signs of recovery, economic bounceback is expected this year and into 2025, with cities home to high growth sectors such as transportation and storage, public sector and defence, and construction set to perform well. 

While Plymouth, Bristol and Swindon perform well in the Index based on historical data, these cities are forecasted to have relatively average economic outlooks for 2024, consistent with lower performing cities such as Walsall, Birmingham and Nottingham. 

The UK picture: raising prosperity and opportunity

PwC’s research shows that the public are most focussed on issues impacting their financial wellbeing, with measures such as income, jobs, and housing seeing the biggest increase in importance to the public. This shift in priorities has impacted cities’ performances, with the historically strong performing cities of Oxford and Milton Keynes seeing the most significant declines in scores, performing less well on income distribution, housing and high streets & shops.  

Analysis in the Index shows the performance on house price-to-earnings ratio saw the largest decline across UK cities from last year’s Index - with the average house now costing over eight times the average earnings, compared to just four times in the 1990s. Cities with the largest social housing waiting lists, such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle, are among the lowest performing cities in the Index.

Rachel Taylor, Government & Health Industries Leader at PwC, said:

“Raising prosperity across the UK is needed more than ever as we continue to see growing inequality in housing, jobs and education. There is an increasing imbalance within and between neighbourhoods, which is being driven by disparities in access to quality education, jobs and housing. This is felt not only across different regions, but also between people living within the same postcodes in cities. 

“If we are serious about economic growth as a country we need to provide people and places with the foundations on which they can fuel that growth - access to jobs, skills and education and affordable homes. The public’s priorities are clear and together local and national government, businesses and the third sector need to work together through local growth plans tailored to local needs and opportunities to make this a reality.”