A survey of the country’s most economically significant cities has ranked Edinburgh as the most attractive city in which to live and work in the whole UK.
The city’s green spaces, education and healthcare resulted in it beating London to the top spot in a study commissioned by the Royal Mail.
Researchers also used employment rates to assess job opportunities and collating data on start-ups and patents to consider the strength of business communities.
Edinburgh (pictured) was revealed as the most attractive place to live and work in the whole of the UK
London came in second – it was let down by factors such as a lack of affordable housing in its fight for the top spot
Bristol (pictured) is the third best place to live and work in the UK after a survey by the Royal Mail
Despite having some of the lowest earnings in the top 12, Newcastle-Gateshead was voted as the fourth best place to live and work
The number of theatres and libraries in a location gave it a cultural services score and the other categories covered were earnings, housing affordability and office costs to produce a list the 12 most desirable places.
Taking second place, London scored higher than Edinburgh in the business, earnings and employment categories.
But Scotland’s capital was best in the UK in terms of education access and also edged out competition due to its green spaced sprawling across 28 per cent of the city.
Manchester (pictured) came in fifth and also had the second biggest proportion of green space across its city
Glasgow (pictured) was revealed as the city with the highest proportion of green space in the Royal Mail survey
Edinburgh was also the second-highest earning city, with an average weekly wage of £578 but its office spaces were half the cost of London’s and it boasts a 70.8 per cent employment rate.
London’s affordable housing along with having the country’s highest office costs meant it lagged in second place overall despite having average weekly earnings of £697 – the UK’s highest.
Bristol came in third place and was also the highest-ranked in the UK for job opportunities. Newcastle-Gateshead was fourth – though it came eleventh for earnings – and was followed by Manchester.
The north-west city was second overall for green spaces but fared badly on earnings, coming in at tenth.
Although it finished sixth overall, Glasgow came first for the most green space, with it covering 35 per cent of the city.
The study, which was produced in collaboration with Cente for Economics and Business Research, put Leeds in seventh.
The West Yorkshire city was followed by Cardiff, Sheffield, Liverpool, Belfast and Birmingham.
Leeds in West Yorkshire also made the top 12 in a survey that analysed job opportunities as well as office space costs
Cardiff came eighth in the list of the top 12 best places to live and work in the UK by the Royal Mail researchers
Sheffield in South Yorkshire also made the cut in a survey that focused on the UK’s most economically important areas
Liverpool topped the list for housing affordability as well as office costs and was included in the top 10
Belfast (pictured) made the top 12 as the survey considered the capitals of Wales and Northern Ireland as well as the most economically successful or important cities
Birmingham was dubbed one of the UK’s leading cities in which to live or work by the research team
Royal Mail spokesman David Gold said: ‘This new research from Royal Mail shows there is hot competition among the UK’s leading cities to be the most attractive location for people to live and work in.
‘Edinburgh has the edge on other economically significant UK cities. Bristol also performs well in categories including job opportunities, healthcare, business community and culture.’
The research considered the top 10 most economically significant cities and the capital cities of Wales and Northern Ireland.
This graph shows that cities were awarded scores based on where they finished in terms of place when compared with other locations, with the lowest number winning overall