Over the last 10 years, the UK’s GVA has grown at a rate of just 1.7%.

However, across the UK there are cities that have bucked this trend. The Fast Growth Cities group – made up of Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Norwich, Oxford, Peterborough and Swindon – are among the UK’s most productive and fast-growing urban economies outside London. Individually and collectively, they play a critical role in supporting national productivity, innovation, inward investment and long-term fiscal returns.

To demonstrate the impact of the FGCs, the group commissioned Public First to undertake a study highlighting the unique assets and challenges facing each city, their economic opportunity and to provide an assessment of the key drivers and constraints that must be addressed to allow them to reach their full potential.

Read the full report here

This research found that these cities already deliver a disproportionate contribution to UK PLC and that further growth is achievable if the right conditions are met:

• Over the past decade, FGCs have delivered real GVA growth of around 2% per year, consistently above the UK average of approximately 1.7%.
• Despite accounting for less than 2% of the UK population, the group attracts around 10% of total UK venture capital investment, reflecting its concentration of high-value firms, research activity and skilled labour.
• Collectively, the cities already contribute tens of billions of pounds in GVA each year and support hundreds of thousands of high-productivity jobs across the Growth Corridor and beyond.
• Scenario modelling indicates that, with sustained productivity growth and a return to pre-pandemic employment trends, Fast Growth Cities could generate £28bn in additional real GVA by 2035 and over £100bn by 2050.

The national impact of this growth would extend well beyond city boundaries. FGCs support extensive commuting zones, national supply chains, and innovation spillovers, meaning that a large share of the value created accrues to surrounding regions and the Exchequer rather than remaining localised.

However, our research showed that these outcomes are not guaranteed. The ability of FGCs to sustain and scale growth is increasingly constrained by transport capacity, housing affordability and supply, water and energy infrastructure, and fragmented governance arrangements. These are not failures of market demand but failures of enabling infrastructure and coordination.