Warrington has been named the second-best place in the UK for fully remote workers – ranking ahead of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham and London.
A new study has placed Warrington firmly among the UK’s leading locations for people who work remotely and want access to a professional coworking base.
Warrington scored 70.7 out of 100, putting it second in a ranking of 16 major UK coworking markets. Only Aberdeen, with a score of 77.8, ranked higher.
Liverpool came third with 68.9, while Manchester was fourth on 68.8.
The findings put three North West locations in the top four – highlighting the region’s growing appeal to workers who are no longer tied to a daily commute into a traditional city-centre office.
London, traditionally regarded as the UK’s dominant business hub, was ranked only 15th with a score of 32.5. Oxford came bottom of the table with 16.4.
Warrington ahead of traditional business centres
The ranking, produced by Co-Space, compares 16 of the UK’s largest coworking markets using four factors designed to assess the practical considerations facing remote workers.
These are:
Housing affordability – 35%
Coworking affordability – 25%
Coworking availability – 25%
Congestion/commuting – 15%
The scores were then standardised to produce an overall score out of 100.
The study is not intended to rank every town and city in Britain, but specifically compares 16 of the country’s largest coworking markets.
Importantly for Warrington, the researchers say that where comparable city-level data was unavailable, group median figures were used. This included TomTom congestion data for Warrington.
The findings come as working from home continues to play a significant role in the UK labour market.
The Office for National Statistics maintains dedicated datasets tracking homeworking and its regional patterns.
The wider shift towards remote and hybrid working means workers who are no longer required to commute five days a week can make different choices about where they live and work.
And that is where Warrington’s position in the latest ranking is particularly interesting.
The town’s location between Liverpool and Manchester, combined with its transport connections and relatively lower costs compared with major city centres, are among the factors that can make it attractive to businesses and workers.
The Co-Space research argues that remote workers can place greater emphasis on affordability, convenience and access to suitable working environments rather than simply being close to a major employment centre.
William Stokes, CEO and co-founder of Co-Space, said remote working had changed the way people should think about where they work.
“If you’re no longer commuting into an office every day, there’s much less reason to automatically gravitate towards the biggest city or the most expensive business district.”*
He added that the ranking challenged the assumption that larger cities necessarily offered more to remote workers.
Cities such as Aberdeen, Warrington and Liverpool are showing that value, convenience and quality of life can be just as important as being close to a major employment centre.”*
According to Stokes, coworking spaces can also provide an important social and professional environment for people who otherwise work alone.
“For someone working remotely five days a week, a coworking space isn’t simply somewhere to put a laptop. It can provide structure to the working day, opportunities to meet people and a clear separation between work and home.”
What makes Warrington stand out?
The study suggests that the attractiveness of a remote-working location is about considerably more than the availability of a desk.
Workers are advised to consider whether a coworking space provides quiet areas, meeting rooms, phone booths and communal areas – as well as what is available around the workplace.
For fully remote workers, being based in the most expensive part of a major city may no longer be necessary.
The report also highlights the importance of balancing community with privacy, checking exactly what is included in a coworking membership and trying a workspace before committing to a longer-term arrangement.
And, perhaps inevitably in a shared working environment, good coworking etiquette is also highlighted.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the table from a Warrington perspective is the performance of the North West as a whole.
Warrington is second, Liverpool third and Manchester fourth. Together, the three locations occupy three of the top four positions in the national ranking.
By comparison, Leeds is sixth, Birmingham seventh, Edinburgh 13th, London 15th and Oxford 16th.
It provides another indication of how the traditional geography of work is changing – with workers increasingly able to separate where their employer is based from where they actually live and work.
For Warrington, already established as an important business and employment centre between the region’s two major cities, the findings provide a potentially significant new selling point.
The study does not claim that Warrington is universally the UK’s best place to work remotely. Rather, within the 16-city sample examined, its combination of housing costs, coworking costs and availability and congestion-related factors produced a 70.7 overall score and second place nationally.
And that puts Warrington ahead of some of Britain’s best-known business destinations.
