Sheffield named as UK's second fastest growing city economy in new study

According to the study, Sheffield is developing three times faster than London, with a growth rate of 4.1 per cent. It finds itself ahead of the rapidly expanding city economies of Bradford, the third fastest growing city, Portsmouth and Manchester. Liverpool has been identified as the UK’s fastest-growing city economy.

These cities constitute the top five fastest-growing UK cities ranked by data-as-a-service company, The Data City.

Commenting on the economic growth study, Alex Craven, CEO of The Data City, said: “With so much opportunity spread across the UK, we’ve used our data platform of the UK’s companies to map the fastest growing cities in the country, highlighting the emerging sectors and companies driving innovation in each region using our Real-Time Industrial Classifications (RTICs).

“Although the findings are great news for Sheffield as the second fastest growing city in the country, there are over 40 emerging economy sectors with businesses outside of London and the South East. This shows the progression of the exciting work that is going on across the UK with new sectors emerging all the time.”

Manufacturing organisations in Sheffield include the Translational Energy Research Center and the Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Center.

The work done by these institutions is enabling significant breakthroughs in areas such as Synthetic Air Fuels (SAF). Late last year, the RAF successfully tested SAF in one of their larger aircraft. Sheffield’s SAF Innovation Center supports testing for this year's first Net Zero transatlantic flight.