The UK Cities Where Businesses Are Proving Most Resilient Despite Rising Costs
Oxford has been named the UK’s most resilient city for businesses, with Cambridge, Lichfield, St Albans and Aberdeen completing the top five, according to new analysis of official business survival and growth data.
British Business Funding analysed the latest local business data from the Office for National Statistics to identify the UK cities where businesses appear best placed to withstand a challenging economic environment.
The findings come as businesses continue to face significant cost pressure. The latest ONS Business Insights and Conditions Survey, published on 6 August 2026, found that 70% of businesses with 10 or more employees were concerned about energy prices, while the same proportion expressed concern about fuel costs.
Among businesses with supply-chain concerns, 52% expected the cost of sourcing materials to be affected and 47% expected an impact on transportation costs.
Despite those pressures, some UK cities are showing a combination of strong business survival, relatively low closure rates and a higher-than-average concentration of rapidly growing companies.
The UK’s most resilient cities for business
British Business Funding created a Business Resilience Score using three official ONS measures:
- The proportion of businesses established in 2023 that were still active one year later
- The proportion of established businesses classed as high-growth in 2024
- The 2024 business death rate, with lower closure rates scoring more highly
Each measure was standardised and given equal weighting to produce an overall score out of 100.
| Rank | City | One-year survival | High-growth businesses | Business death rate | Resilience score |
| 1 | Oxford | 93.1% | 7.6% | 8.9% | 79.9 |
| 2 | Cambridge | 92.6% | 6.8% | 8.0% | 76.5 |
| 3 | Lichfield | 94.6% | 5.6% | 9.0% | 72.8 |
| 4 | St Albans | 94.3% | 6.0% | 9.4% | 71.1 |
| 5 | Aberdeen | 94.3% | 6.0% | 9.8% | 69.0 |
| 6 | Colchester | 95.2% | 4.8% | 9.3% | 67.7 |
| 7 | York | 95.0% | 4.3% | 8.6% | 67.6 |
| 8 | Edinburgh | 94.3% | 5.8% | 10.1% | 66.5 |
| 9 | Chelmsford | 95.2% | 4.4% | 9.1% | 66.3 |
| 10 | Lincoln | 93.2% | 5.5% | 8.8% | 65.6 |
British Business Funding analysis of the ONS one-year business survival data, high-growth business data and business death data.
Oxford combines survival with rapid growth
Oxford claimed first place largely because businesses in the city are not simply remaining active. A relatively high proportion are expanding rapidly.
Some 7.6% of Oxford businesses with at least 10 employees qualified as high-growth businesses in 2024, compared with 4.9% across the UK.
The ONS defines a high-growth business as one with at least 10 employees that achieved average employment growth of more than 20% per year over a three-year period.
Cambridge followed closely, with 6.8% of eligible businesses achieving high-growth status.
Both cities also perform strongly over a longer period. The latest five-year ONS figures show that 48.7% of businesses established in Oxford in 2019 were still active five years later, while Cambridge recorded a survival rate of 48.0%.
The UK average was just 38.4%.
This means Oxford and Cambridge combine two important characteristics: businesses are more likely to survive over the long term, while established employers are also more likely to be increasing their workforces rapidly.
Resilience is not restricted to the South East
The results are not entirely dominated by the traditional business centres of London and the South East.
Aberdeen ranks fifth, Edinburgh eighth and York seventh, while Lincoln reaches the top 10.
Belfast narrowly missed the top 10 but recorded one of the lowest business death rates of any city analysed, at 7.7%, compared with 9.8% across the UK.
Nationally, there are also signs of improvement.
The number of UK business deaths fell from approximately 310,000 in 2023 to 280,000 in 2024, pushing the business death rate down from 10.8% to 9.8%, its lowest level since 2016.
At the same time, 14,330 UK companies qualified as high-growth businesses in 2024. The national high-growth rate increased to 4.9%, its highest level since 2018.
What makes a business resilient?
There is unlikely to be one explanation for why businesses in certain cities perform better.
The industry mix within a city, access to skilled workers, productivity, infrastructure, local demand and the availability of finance can all influence how businesses respond to difficult trading conditions.
Oxford and Cambridge, for example, have substantial technology, scientific and professional-services economies. This is particularly relevant because the ONS found that information and communication had the highest national high-growth rate of any major industry in 2024, at 9.2%. Professional, scientific and technical businesses also recorded an above-average high-growth rate of 6.2%.
That does not mean businesses elsewhere cannot be equally resilient. It does suggest that the structure of a local economy can influence how exposed companies are to rising costs and how easily they can continue investing during periods of uncertainty.
Resilience still requires access to cash
John Carter, Managing Director of British Business Funding, said:
“Some of the most interesting results are the cities combining business survival with continued growth. Keeping a business operating is one thing, but continuing to recruit and expand while costs remain elevated is a much stronger indicator of confidence.
“Resilient businesses still need to manage cash carefully. Growth itself can put pressure on working capital because wages, stock, equipment and suppliers often need to be paid before the additional revenue arrives.
“For businesses with a strong underlying model, having access to the right type of funding can provide the flexibility to continue investing rather than putting growth plans on hold because of short-term cash flow pressure.”
Methodology
British Business Funding analysed official Office for National Statistics business demography data published in November 2025, the latest local-level annual data currently available.
The analysis considered 53 officially recognised UK cities where an ONS lower-tier or unitary local-authority area could be matched directly to the city. Official city status was taken from the Cabinet Office list of UK cities.
Cities including London and those situated within substantially wider local authorities were excluded where a directly comparable city-level dataset was not available.
The Business Resilience Score gives equal weight to:
- One-year survival: businesses born in 2023 that remained active during 2024.
- High growth: businesses with at least 10 employees that recorded average employment growth above 20% per year between 2021 and 2024.
- Business deaths: the percentage of active businesses that ceased trading in 2024, with lower rates receiving a higher score.
Each measure was normalised from 0 to 100 across the 53 cities before the three scores were averaged.
Local-authority boundaries do not always correspond exactly with built-up city boundaries. The ONS also warns that concentrations of businesses registered at virtual offices, company formation agents and similar addresses can distort business demography statistics at lower geographical levels, so local results should be interpreted with appropriate caution.
If sharing this data externally, please credit: https://britishbusinessfunding.co.uk/