London’s human capital is second to nowhere in the world, helping the UK’s capital climb to the second spot on Oxford Economics’ latest Global Cities Index.
Oxford Economics measured the 1,000 largest cities in the world on five categories: Economics, Human Capital, Quality of Life, Environment, and Governance.
Although London lost out to New York in the overall score, the UK’s capital came top on the human capital score, beating Tokyo and Riyadh in second and third place.
The consultancy noted this was largely due to the number of universities in London, which helped it achieve one of the highest rates of educational attainment in the world.
The capital’s world beating universities attract highly educated people from around the world, with nearly 40 per cent of London’s population born outside the UK.
The strength of its talent pool has helped to attract several global corporations to the city, propelling London to the seventh spot on the economics category. The top six were all in the US.
Oxford Economics noted that London’s economy continues to perform well despite the impact of Brexit.
“Fears that Brexit would lead to a decline of the city as a global financial centre have not been realised. And we expect London to continue to attract migrants from all over the world to access its world-class institutions and range of job opportunities,” the report said.
It scored 197th on the environment, which was “impressive” for a city of London’s size. Most of the world’s most environmentally friendly cities are much smaller. Suva in Fiji topped the environmental score.
In terms of weaknesses, the report highlighted high housing costs and lower income equality, both of which dragged down on the city’s quality of life score.
“London residents spend more of their income on housing than the residents of nearly every other city in the world. At the core of this crisis are structural affordable housing supply issues, which will take both political willpower and time to resolve,” the report said.
London came 292nd on quality of life, just above Las Vegas and just below Louisville, home of the Kentucky Derby. Despite US economic dominance, no US cities featured in the top 10 for quality of life.
Grenoble in France topped the rankings for quality of life, followed by Canberra in Australia and Bern in Switzerland.