This factsheet shows how Bradford compares to the five most similar European cities by size and industrial structure. These are: Rotterdam (Netherlands), Bordeaux (France), Kraków (Poland), Göteborg (Sweden), Nice (France).

Comparing cities in this way helps us to understand more about how well UK cities are competing on an international scale because it groups cities with similar industrial structures, rather than on their resulting economic performance. The factsheet also compares the relative strengths and weaknesses of Bradford to its European counterparts on variables such as skills, employment and productivity.

City group characteristics

Bradford is part of a group of large cities with fairly evenly sized public sectors, and private services sectors.

Population

Industrial structure

Key

• Manufacturing, mining and utilities 2011
• Business services 2011
• Public services 2011
• Other private services 2011
• Other sectors 2011

Overall economic performance

Bradford is a fairly low performer across all the indicators within its group of cities. While for many indicators there is not too much variation between Bradford’s overall rank and the cities in the group, productivity is stand out – with Kraków, Bradford’s GVA per worker is much lower than the other comparators.