Bristol is the second most innovative city in the UK, according to a new report, coming just behind London.
The city scores 82.5 out of 100 in the new UK innovation index, which ranks 60 locations across the country on criteria such as number of start-ups, qualifications of its employees and their entrepreneurialism. 
The table has been drawn up by Paymentsense, which supplies card machines and e-commerce services to more than 80,000 businesses in the UK and Ireland.
To discover which UK cities were the most innovative, Paymentsense looked at Google Search volumes for related searched terms over the past 12 months, the number of new kickstarter ideas, the average amounts pledged, education levels of the working population, business start-ups per 10,000 people and the percentage of private knowledge intensive business services jobs.
These metrics were scored and weighted to give a total ‘Innovative index score’ out of 100.
While London came top with score of 86.4, Bristol’s 82.5 put it ahead of Manchester and Edinburgh in joint third place with 78.5.
Bristol’s start-up rate per 10,000 people came in at 56, almost London’s, while the capital also did better for the average amount pledged to kickstarter campaigns – £9,141 against £7,947 for Bristol.
Top 20 cities ranked for innovation.
1 London
2 Bristol
3 Edinburgh
4 Manchester
5 Leeds
6 Glasgow
7 Brighton
8 Reading
9 Cambridge
10 Northampton
11 Southampton
12 Milton Keynes
13 Aberdeen
14 Liverpool
15 Nottingham
16 Bournemouth
17 Leicester
18 Slough
19 Sheffield
20 Belfast
