Nottingham has seen the sharpest drop in its economic vitality rating as the cost of living crisis continues to bite across UK cities – and the threat of recession puts local economies on diverging paths.

The Midlands city now occupies last position in the latest Evaluate|Locate Key Cities Tracker which shows that the decline in economic vitality across 20 UK cities is now accelerating.
During the 12 months to the end of Q3 2022, Nottingham saw a -10% decline in its Economic Vitality Index (EVI). Manchester was the second worst-performing with a -9.6% drop followed by Aberdeen and Swansea which both fell by -8.4%.

By stark contrast and over the same period, Belfast and Glasgow continued to demonstrate their comparative economic resilience as their index ratings both declined by only -3.6%.

Having been arguably more severely impacted by the pandemic than any other UK city, London is now seeing the momentum of its economy reasserting itself. Economic vitality across the capital was down -4.4% year-on-year but this saw it move up three positions in the rankings as other cities saw more severe drops.

Created by JPES Partners, Evaluate|Locate rates every location across the UK – from postcode detail upwards – on the basis of 96 economic metrics which are grouped around business density; labour market conditions; average residential values; and population movements.

Adam Kirby, Head of Data & Insights at Evaluate|Locate, comments: “This is a sombre picture for jobs and prosperity as we head into the final quarter of the year. The speed with which economic vitality is declining across these 20 cities is clearly accelerating. And that’s even before we see the impact of the markets turmoil that followed the recent Budget and interest rate rises.

“Within that trend, economic vitality also continues to diverge across different UK locations. This latest analysis underlines that not all micro-economies are impacted to the same extent by the current stress of the domestic and international situation.”