UK’s best and worst value places to live revealed

Looking to relocate? Forget London. Homebuyers should look to the north to get the most for your money

New research has revealed the best and worst places to live in the UK based on a combination of factors and London, you’ve not fared well.

The analysis, carried out by employment search engine Adzuna, looked at 1,000,000 job vacancies and compared the areas in which the vacancies are based in terms of local wages, house prices and the cost of renting.

Coming out top was Aberdeen, which was crowned the best value place to live across all ranking factors.

With over 3,800 job vacancies, an average salary of £34,747, and just two people per job on average, Aberdeen outranked all other UK cities.

However, if you’re looking to rent you may have to rethink a move to this northeast Scotland city – it failed to make the top 10 in terms of the best places to rent in the UK, with the top spot going to Hull, where residents spend just 17% of their earnings on rent.

Taking the second and third spots as the overall best value places to live are Preston and Newport.

The 10 best places to live in the UK

Rank	City	People per vacancy	Average house price	Average salary	Average annual rent	Annual salary spent on rent (%)
1	Aberdeen	2.5	£146,141	£34,743	£8,028	23.11%
2	Preston	1.6	£127,323	£30,432	£6,564	21.57%
3	Newport	4.0	£184,978	£36,580	£7,188	19.65%
4	Liverpool	3.2	£136,517	£30,972	£5,736	18.97%
5	Carlisle	2.7	£136,410	£30,238	£5,988	19.33%
6	Manchester	1.0	£179,506	£33,787	£10,068	29.80%
7	Hereford	1.4	£245,308	£33,678	£7,512	22.31%
8	Durham	11.3	£105,444	£32,172	£5,916	18.39%
9	Nottingham	2.9	£145,479	£32,335	£7,764	24.01%
10	Newcastle	2.4	£166,662	£32,944	£8,604	26.12%

The 10 worst places to live in the UK

Rank	City	People per vacancy	Average house price	Average salary	Average annual rent	Annual salary spent on rent (%)
1	Westminster	49.1	£914,776	£34,492	£33,984	98.53%
2	Lichfield	4.9	£244,372	£25,205	£8,724	34.61%
3	Stirling	6.4	£188,883	£27,458	£10,488	38.20%
4	Tunbridge Wells	1.9	£400,159	£27,349	£12,624	46.16%
5	York	3.4	£258,202	£29,088	£12,408	42.66%
6	Chichester	2.4	£384,270	£28,839	£11,592	40.20%
7	Canterbury	5.4	£295,912	£30,598	£10,476	34.24%
8	St Albans	2.3	£508,389	£31,477	£15,720	49.94%
9	Salford	7.0	£166,216	£28,784	£8,964	31.14%
10	Bath	2.0	£334,257	£30,988	£15,456	49.88%

Meanwhile, with an eye-watering average house price of £914,775, 49 people for every job vacancy (compared to just 2.5 in Aberdeen) and a shocking 98.5% of the annual salary spent on rent, Westminster has been crowned the worst place to live in the UK (and that’s before you take into account the unsavoury characters who come here to work!).

Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, says: “Whilst London was naturally the city with the highest earnings, it was interesting to see more of a regional spread making up the other high-earners, with Cardiff not far behind and other cities like Birmingham and Newport also ranking highly.

“However, we know that finding the best place to live for your needs isn’t always about where you can earn the most money. In fact, our analysis found that some of the highest-earning locations offer much less when it comes to job opportunities, or value for money when it comes to paying rent.”

Photo: richardjohnson/Shutterstock