British online marketplace OnBuy carried out research on ten UK cities, with London topping two of the four factors examined. 

A national campaign powered by NatWest Bank, named StartUp Britain, claims that in the 31 days of January 2018 alone, 46,291 start-ups were already created – the equivalent of around 1,500 per day.

As a result, online British Marketplace OnBuy considered where the best place would be to launch a retail start-up, assessing four main factors: which area has the highest retail spend, the average wage of a retail manager, the number of employees hired in each city, and the cost of retail store premises per square foot.

Utilising the OPUS Energy Business Clusters Map, OnBuy considered the following 10 cities in the UK: London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Cardiff.

It found Birmingham has the highest retail spend in the UK, per person, per year; Cardiff has the lowest.

The average wage of a retail store manager is highest in London, at almost £27,000 PA. OnBuy concluded that the best place to be employed as a retail store manager is in London, with an average annual salary of £26,858. This was followed by the Scottish city of Glasgow, where earnings amount to £25,685 per annum.

OnBuy.com also investigated the city that hires the most retail workers. Unsurprisingly, London came out on top, hiring almost half a million workers (400,000).

London has the most expensive retail premises, compared to Liverpool which has the cheapest. The cost of retail premises in London is the highest in the UK, costing a staggering £127.14 per square foot. On the other hand, Liverpool has the cheapest at just £55.31 per square foot – £71.83 less.