The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Scottish cities’ improving fortunes
Aberdeen and Edinburgh have ranked in the top 10 UK cities in which to live and work for a fourth consecutive year.
The latest Good Growth for Cities index, produced by PwC and thinktank Demos, placed Edinburgh third while Aberdeen fell from fifth to 10th place.
Glasgow also fell from 24th to 29th but outperformed Newcastle, Birmingham and Sheffield.
The report measured the performance of cities against 10 categories deemed by the public and business as key to economic success as well as personal and family wellbeing.
The categories included jobs, health, income and skills, work-life balance, house affordability, travel-to-work times, income equality and pollution
Oxford was top and London was 15th due to housing affordability, transport congestion and income inequality
There was better news in a comparison of the devolved cities which saw the Scottish cities outperform their Welsh and Northern Ireland counterparts.
Inverness led the way with Perth and Dundee also scoring positively for growth, while Derry and Swansea had negative readings.
Only cities with populations of 250,000 and above were included in the main index. Scottish cities score particularly well on elements such as skills, jobs, income and transport, with all scoring around or above average.
The biggest improvements since the previous index were in jobs, new businesses and skills. Jobs increases were well above the UK average in four out of the seven Scottish cities.
Paul Brewer, of PwC’s public sector team in Scotland, said: “This year’s report has a number of positives for Scotland. Jobs, skills and new businesses are the factors with the largest increase since the last survey in many cities.
“The skills increase across the country is to be welcomed as skill availability is a key requirement for sustainable economic growth and employment.
“But there are also issues that need addressing. The country as a whole is scoring average for owner occupation and house price to earnings but in health and work/life balance we perform below average.”