A new study from the business essentials experts at Bionic has uncovered the UK cities that offer the best beauty businesses and services! Does your city make the cut?

After living in tracksuits and barely leaving the house for the best part of two years, it looks like we may finally have hit the post-Covid era, as businesses are allowed to open without restrictions.. That means people all over the country are in search of a glow up - the ultimate transformation from drab to fab. 

Bionic looked at the cost of business rent in each city, the number of different beauty shops per 100,000 people, along with their average rating and costs. The data also takes into account the average opening and closing hours of the businesses and the Google search demand for each business. 

Keep reading to find out where you should book your next beauty treatment in the UK! Liverpool ranks as the best UK city for beauty care and services.

Liverpool ranks as the best UK city for beauty care and services

Liverpool comes out on top as the best city in the UK for beauty care and services, scoring an impressive 70 out of 100! This riverside city has great ratings for all beauty services it has on offer, from hairdressers rating an impressive 4.81 average to waxing salons with a 4.87 rating - all other beauty services in this city rank above 4. Liverpool is also fairly affordable for business owners too, as the average monthly rent is £133 per m2 of retail space - ideal if you're thinking of setting up your own beauty services in this city! 

Liverpool ranks as the best UK city for beauty care and services

Liverpool comes out on top as the best city in the UK for beauty care and services, scoring an impressive 70 out of 100! This riverside city has great ratings for all beauty services it has on offer, from hairdressers rating an impressive 4.81 average to waxing salons with a 4.87 rating - all other beauty services in this city rank above 4. Liverpool is also fairly affordable for business owners too, as the average monthly rent is £133 per m2 of retail space - ideal if you're thinking of setting up your own beauty services in this city! 

Leeds and Wolverhampton rank in second and third place

Leeds is the second best city overall for beauty services, with a score of 69 out of 100. Leeds ranked second best for nail services in particular, so if it’s a nail-centred glow up you need, this could well be the perfect spot for it. Prices are pretty affordable too, with treatments working out at an average of £19.90. You’ll find 7.64 salons per 100,000 people in the city, too, so it won’t be long before you have the nails of your dreams! 

Wolverhampton ranked just behind Leeds with the same score overall - 69 out of 100. This city ranked the best in the UK for waxing services! The average rating is a high 4.9/5, and a waxing treatment will cost you an average of £16.67. Wolverhampton is also the third best city for massages with 3.78 parlours per 100,000 people in the city, and they cost an average of only £26 for a treatment - proving to be a great city for relaxation. 

Rounding off the top five cities for beauty services are Salford and Nottingham 

The fourth best city in the UK for beauty care and services is Salford, with a score of 67 out of 100. Salford ranked the sixth best city in the UK for both nail and eyelash services - the perfect city to get glammed up for your next night out or holiday! The nail salons in Salford have an outstanding average rating of 4.92, while eyelash salons score 4.88, so you won’t have to worry about the standards for your visit. To get your lashes looking fabulous, you're looking to spend just under £35 and an average of £22.55 to get those perfect nails. 

Ranking just behind, with a score of 66 out of 100 is Nottingham! There is no such thing as a bad hair day in this city, scoring a high 77 out of 100, Nottingham tops the hairdresser list. It’s great for customers as the average price of a hair appointment is only £24.33. You also won’t be hard pressed to find your nearest hairdressers, because there are 7.4 hairdressers per 100,000 people in Nottingham. This city also has the most waxing places per 100,000 people out of the top three cities, with 3.86 and the cheapest, with the average service costing only £16 - a great city to be if you're in need of a glow up! 

You can read the full report at The Bionic Great British Glow Up.

-ENDS-

About Bionic

Bionic is a comparison service for business, a one-stop shop for all the business essentials - those services SMEs need to run from day to day. Bionic’s tech-enabled experts match business owners with tailored business energy, insurance, connectivity, and finance solutions from their panel of trusted UK providers, suppliers and products.

_Methodology

_{The data was used to try and determine the best city for a ‘glow up’. This study was based on data from GOV to know the cheapest location to rent a beauty shop in the UK. Treatwell data on the average cost of beauty treatments, number of stores per 100,000 people in each city and the average rating of each store type in each city. Data was ranked accordingly and of equal weighting to give a fair outcome of what the best city for a ‘glow up’ is within the UK.}

_{To create the smaller indexes, data was used to try and determine the best city for each type of store. This study was based on data from GOV to know the cheapest location to rent a beauty shop in the UK. Treatwell data on the average cost of beauty treatments, number of stores per 100,000 people in each city and the average rating of each store type in each city, the average opening and closing times of each store in each city and the search volumes for each type of store per 100,000 people in each city. Data was ranked accordingly and of equal weighting to give a fair outcome of what the best city for each type of treatment.}

_Appendix

Ranking	City	Cost to rent per m2 of retail store	Total Number Of Hairdressers Per 100,000 People	Average Price Of Hairdressers	Average Rating Of Hairdressers	Total Number Of Nail Salons	Total Number Of Nail Salons Per 100,000 People	Average Price Of Nail Salons	Average Rating Of Nail Salons	Total Number Of Massage Therapists Per 100,000 People	Average Price Of Massage Therapists	Average Rating Of Massage Therapists	Total Number Of Waxing Salons Per 100,000 People	Average Price Of Waxing Salons	Average Rating Of Waxing Salons	Total Number Of Eyelash Salons Per 100,000 People	Average Price Of Eyelash Salons	Average Rating Of Eyelash Salons	Index score (out of 100)
1	Liverpool	£133.00	15.0	£23.67	4.81	34	6.8	£14.83	4.81	6.0	£27.92	4.84	6.6	£16.67	4.87	5.0	£39.33	4.78	70
2	Leeds	£128.00	14.9	£29.17	4.87	61	7.6	£19.90	4.88	8.3	£38.69	4.89	6.3	£23.00	4.88	5.4	£34.00	4.85	69
3	Wolverhampton	£123.00	3.4	£23.95	4.77	8	3.0	£17.67	4.90	3.8	£26.00	4.85	3.0	£16.67	4.90	3.0	£40.00	4.90	69
4	Salford	£133.00	12.9	£27.00	4.94	26	9.9	£22.55	4.92	8.4	£31.67	4.62	9.5	£18.00	4.61	8.4	£34.17	4.88	67
5	Nottingham	£108.00	7.4	£24.33	4.90	12	3.6	£19.20	4.80	3.3	£27.33	4.80	3.9	£16.00	4.80	2.4	£32.00	4.50	66
6	Manchester	£133.00	22.1	£32.67	4.78	68	12.2	£19.80	4.72	12.4	£35.12	4.83	13.9	£18.75	4.83	8.8	£34.50	4.83	66
7	Leicester	£108.00	0.6	£25.00	4.95	2	0.6	£17.50	4.90	1.4	£35.00	4.90	0.3	£16.50	4.90	0.6	£27.50	4.90	63
8	Brighton and Hove	£156.00	13.4	£34.83	4.85	31	10.6	£26.09	4.87	11.7	£41.50	4.89	10.3	£22.67	4.87	5.1	£36.67	4.82	61
9	Newcastle upon Tyne	£128.00	7.2	£27.08	4.78	14	4.6	£24.20	4.86	4.2	£26.00	4.83	5.2	£20.33	4.90	3.3	£33.50	4.73	61
10	Wakefield	£128.00	2.3	£27.63	4.90	10	2.8	£14.25	4.92	2.6	£40.00	4.83	2.8	£17.67	4.87	1.7	£33.83	4.80	60
11	Bradford	£128.00	2.2	£25.80	4.87	9	1.7	£21.80	4.90	2.0	£26.92	4.90	2.2	£18.00	4.90	1.8	£33.33	4.73	60
12	Birmingham	£123.00	10.6	£27.13	4.65	79	6.9	£28.02	4.77	7.8	£28.63	4.83	7.9	£18.40	4.81	4.7	£32.50	4.78	60
13	Bristol	£138.00	14.4	£32.33	4.75	47	10.1	£24.00	4.84	11.4	£42.25	4.85	9.9	£27.63	4.83	4.3	£39.00	4.76	53
14	Hull	£128.00	1.9	£27.20	4.72	4	1.5	£17.50	4.90	1.5	£27.50	4.90	1.2	£16.50	4.90	0.8	£39.25	4.90	53
15	London	£235.00	26.4	£35.33	4.72	1421	15.8	£30.09	4.71	16.9	£46.67	4.87	20.4	£30.27	4.75	9.3	£49.67	4.67	48
16	Derby	£108.00	2.7	£20.00	4.45	5	1.9	£17.33	4.70	2.3	£23.33	4.73	2.7	£20.67	4.60	1.9	£40.00	4.70	47
17	Portsmouth	£156.00	3.3	£31.33	4.78	4	1.9	£19.88	4.73	1.9	£30.00	4.73	1.9	£18.67	4.73	0.5	£35.00	4.80	39
18	Sheffield	£128.00	2.2	£27.03	4.50	9	1.5	£24.05	4.67	2.0	£27.50	4.75	1.5	£16.50	4.74	1.2	£42.00	4.68	33
19	Coventry	£123.00	1.8	£37.50	4.69	6	1.6	£21.33	4.70	1.6	£25.67	4.70	1.8	£21.00	4.70	1.3	£39.75	4.60	31
20	Chelmsford	£145.00	5.0	£42.00	4.76	6	3.3	£22.80	4.60	1.1	£42.00	4.30	1.7	£26.00	4.30	1.7	£40.00	4.73	24