Burnham’s Manchester push tests London’s role in UK growth
The new prime minister’s regional agenda highlights a long-running gap between London and other British cities, including Manchester.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
3 min read
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made Manchester central to his early political message, including a plan for a “Downing Street North” in the city he once ran, Fortune reported. The move matters because it puts Britain’s regional growth gap back at the center of national economic policy while raising questions about how far a government can shift attention away from London.
Burnham, a former mayor of Greater Manchester, is the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in 10 years, according to Fortune. Fortune said his northern identity marks a deliberate change after the premiership of Sir Keir Starmer, whose public profile was tied more closely to London.
The political pitch reflects a broader economic problem, Fortune reported: major global cities have pulled ahead while many towns, smaller cities and rural areas have struggled to share fully in growth. The same pattern appears in places such as the United States and France, Fortune said, citing contrasts including New York and Gary, Indiana, and Paris and Roubaix.
Regional growth gap
Fortune said targeted government action can help address uneven growth. The measures it identified include investment in transport and digital infrastructure beyond dominant urban centers, support for education and apprenticeships, and tax incentives for business investment in selected high-tech and service industries.
Manchester’s productivity gap with London remains wide, according to the Resolution Foundation, a think tank cited by Fortune. The foundation said Greater Manchester is 35% less productive than London, a larger gap than the 20% difference between Lyon and Paris.
The Resolution Foundation also said that if productivity in the Manchester metro area and London kept growing at their 2004-2019 rates, it would take nearly a century for the Manchester-London gap to narrow to the current Lyon-Paris gap. Fortune said that timetable shows the scale of the challenge facing Burnham’s regional agenda.
London’s economic weight
Fortune also warned that a pro-Manchester message could become politically and economically risky if it is read as anti-London. It described London as one of a small group of global cities that supports economic activity across the U.K. and beyond.
London accounts for 22% of total U.K. economic output, according to figures cited by Fortune. The city’s average GDP per person is £69,000, compared with a U.K. average of £39,400, and London was 29% more productive than the national average in 2023 on an output-per-hour basis, Fortune reported.
London also remains a leading destination for foreign direct investment, according to the EY UK Attractiveness Survey 2026. EY said investors ranked London ahead of New York and Paris as the most attractive global city over the next three years.
Fortune said London’s strengths include financial services, insurance, law, technology, culture and tourism. It reported that nine of the U.K.’s 10 most visited attractions are in London, with Windsor Great Park the only exception and within a short train trip of the capital.
Fortune’s argument is that stronger performance in cities such as Manchester would benefit the country, but weakening focus on London would not help achieve that goal. The magazine said growth is not a zero-sum contest between north and south, and that Burnham’s government will need both regional investment and London’s global reach.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.