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UK Smart Cities Index

UK_Smart_City_indexA new study by Navigant Research evaluates the UK smart city market, with a focus on two dimensions: Strategy and Execution. The Strategy dimension assesses each city’ s vision, goals, and objectives as they relate to its smart city program. The Execution dimension assesses the city’ s actual achievements from initial projects to full-blown deployment of innovative technologies and services.

Cities are profiled, rated, and ranked with the goal of providing an objective assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of their smart city programs.

The city evaluations for this Index are based on two dimensions: Strategy and Execution. The Strategy dimension assesses each city’ s vision, goals, and objectives as they relate to its smart city programme. The Execution dimension assesses the city’ s actual achievements from initial projects to full-blown deployment of innovative technologies and services.

Each dimension is split into five evaluation categories.

Strategy Execution
  • Vision
  • Digital Innovation
  • Service Innovation
  • Sustainability Plans
  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Implementation
  • Digital Delivery
  • Service Delivery
  • Environmental Impact
  • Community Reach

Navigant Research scores the cities in the UK Smart Cities Index according to four categories: Leaders, Contenders, Challengers, and Followers.

Two cities are identified in the Navigant Research rankings as Leaders in the process of becoming smart cities: London and Bristol. Both cities are combining technical innovation with a broader strategy for city development. Behind the Leaders in the Index are a group of cities that are Contenders for leadership positions. Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Milton Keynes, and Peterborough are all developing strong smart city programmes and driving innovation in a number of areas.

Rank City Score Category
1 London 80.5 Leader
2 Bristol 80.2 Leader
3 Birmingham 77.9 Contender
4 Glasgow 75.1 Contender
5 Manchester 74.2 Contender
6 Milton Keynes 72.5 Contender
7 Leeds 70.5 Contender
8 Peterborough 68.2 Contender
9 Nottingham 51.8 Challenger
10 Sheffield 38.1 Challenger

The report highlights the role that the UK government has played in building momentum behind smart cities across the country. The Future Cities and IoT demonstration programmes have provided seed funding for the winning cities and have also driven interest in other cities across the country. Moreover, the establishment of the Future Cities Catapult has ensured continuity of the interest first generated through the Future Cities Demonstrator. The work on smart city standards has also enhanced the global visibility of UK initiatives.