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Do you love living in London? Yes? What if we told you that you’re wrong? You probably feel so silly right now.
Okay, opinions can’t technically be wrong, but research by accounting firm PwC suggests that, statistically speaking, London isn’t one of the best places to live in the UK. PwC has developed the ‘Good Growth for Cities Index’, which measures the quality of life in every UK city based on 12 different indicators including cost of housing, safety and skills, work-life balance, income equality, jobs, travel-to-work times, high street shops, environment and business startups.
And, once all was said, done, and added up, London came third last, saved only by Bradford and Middlesborough being slightly worse. ‘But how?’, we hear you say. If you’re currently saying to yourself that ‘London has loads of business startups and jobs, how could it be so far down,’ you are actually on the right track.
The capital’s low score was largely due to very bad scores in housing and income equality. It also fell behind the national average in terms of safety, work-life balance, and job options. Generally, we were more in the red than in the green, so there’s definitely a lot to work on.
On the bright side, London did well on the environment, so the ULEZ must be doing an alright job. We’re also apparently a very skilled population, so maybe we can put our heads together and figure out how to get ourselves out of this mess.
If you don’t feel like sticking around to help turn London around, PwC recommends you move to Plymouth in Devon, which came out on the very top of the ranking. You can learn more about that here.
So there you have it: London is officially a rubbish place to live – if you take the word of a few accountants as gospel, that is. If you ask us, we at Time Out wholeheartedly disagree. There’s loads of cool places to eat and drink, brilliant galleries and museums, and pretty much endless things to do on your days off in this city. But hey, who are we to argue with the numbers?
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