Aberdeen has seen the UK’s biggest increase in disposable income since the credit crunch, according to a new report.
The resilience of the local economy in and around the Granite City, thanks to the oil and gas industry, is already well known.
But the new figures from Scottish accountancy firm Campbell Dallas and the international association of which it is a member, UHY Hacker Young, show just how much better off the city is by comparison with UK rivals.
Campbell Dallas said a 19% rise in disposable income in the past five years, to £17,986, meant European energy capital households were on average £2,285 richer than just before the recession.
The other UK towns and cities in the top five – in descending order of gross disposable household income (DHI) growth – are Brighton, Belfast, Gillingham/Medway, and Blackpool. Glasgow is rated 21st and Edinburgh 30th.
Campbell Dallas said the strength of Aberdeen’s disposable income was driven by its oil wealth, which accounted for the city having one of the highest rates of economic growth in the UK between 2006 and 2011.
Chairman and partner Ian Williams added: “Households in Aberdeen have benefited from both the collapse in the UK’s mortgage costs and the oil boom.
“As one of the few global centres for the oil and gas industry, Aberdeen has boomed in recent years.”
“It can be hard to imagine but it is now part of that small group of international oil cities that have had a relatively good recession like Houston, Bahrain and Almaty.
“Oil prices rose during the recession and by 2012 oil prices averaged above $111 a barrel.”
Campbell Dallas said the average household disposable income for the UK’s top 40 towns and cities by population had risen by just £1,761 over the same five-year period, to £14,068.
It added that the rise in DHI was largely driven by a substantial reduction in mortgage costs as a result of the Bank of England’s interest rate policy.
UHY Hacker Young looked at the money a household has left to spend or save after taxes and mortgages or rents in order to compile its UK top 40.
