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The UK's Most Expensive Business Locations
Date Added: Thu July 31 2008
Here are the most expensive places in the UK to run a small business outside London.

According to Alliance & Leicester’s Business Cost Monitor (BCM), the popular commuter town of Milton Keynes, less than 50 miles from London, is the most costly place to run a small business in the country.  The town scores particularly highly on rental values, transport prices and labour costs.

The Top Ten most expensive locations for businesses outside London are:
1.       Milton Keynes
2.       Cambridge
3.       Oxford
4.       Guildford
5.       Edinburgh
6.       Chelmsford
7.       Reading
8.       Stevenage
9.       Bristol
10.     Manchester

More than a third (35%) of SMEs across the UK identified labour costs as their biggest financial concern, with a quarter (27%) naming business rates, almost a fifth (19%) identifying rental costs for premises or equipment and nearly one in ten (9%) citing transport costs as having the biggest impact.

When it comes to the secondary costs associated with running a business, almost three in ten (29%) feel the cost of living has the greatest impact on them, while almost two in ten (17%) find the cost of housing in the area, for both themselves and their staff, the greatest burden.  The cost of recruitment, childcare and crime all rank much lower.