City most attractive outside the capital to investors

MANCHESTER DREW IN 31 FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT PROJECTS DURING 2025

- By ALISTAIR HOUGHTON

MANCHESTER was Britain’s best-performing city outside London for attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 2025 despite a fall in the number of projects, new figures from EY have shown.

The latest EY 2026 UK Attractiveness Survey, which ranked 259 European regions on the number of FDI projects they attracted last year, showed Manchester attracted 31 FDI projects in 2025 - down from 44 in 2024. That made it the best-performing city outside of London for FDI for the fourth time in the last six years.

Key FDI sectors included software and IT services, with six projects, with four projects in the health and social work sector and another four in finance, business and professional services.

The UK saw a total of 730 FDI projects last year, down 14 per cent on 853 in 2024. The North West was the fourth ranked region in the UK in terms of project numbers with 51, behind Greater London (279 projects), Scotland (108 projects) and the West Midlands (68 projects).

Of the UK’s nations and regions, only Greater London, Wales and Northern Ireland saw year-on-year growth in FDI projects, with the South West flat. All other regions reported declines, with the North West seeing a 41pc year-on-year fall.