Birmingham has been named most improved city in 2017

Students rejoice, Birmingham has been named the most rapidly improving city in the country.

It comes at a time as more and more people are fleeing overcrowded London in search of cheaper places to live.

Research carried out by consulting group PwC and thinktank Demos have found the West Midlands city had improved the most in its 2017 Good Growth for Cities index. This includes factors such as work-life balance, transport, health, as well income levels.

Although the city ranked 32nd overall, behind other cities such as Oxford, the pace of regeneration seen in Birmingham is unprecedented.

The city is currently riding a wave of economic revival, and challenging its cultural stereotypes (remember when everyone used to call our city a concrete jungle?) It has left behind its image of being an industrial city as it revamps itself into a modern metropolitan. Projects such as the completed Grand Central, the Paradise City and a new food quarter in Digbeth are but a few of the renovations underway in the second city.

This has also been helped by falling unemployment. The rate fell to 7.4% last year from 11.4% in 2013. That still remains above the national average, which stood at 4.3% in August.

John Hawksworth, chief economist at PwC, said: "The UK has been a great job-creating machine in recent years and this has driven improvement in our good growth index this year across all major UK cities."

However, he also mentioned: "There has also been a price to pay for this in terms of worsening housing affordability, increased average commuting times and more people having to work long hours. The cities that are highest ranked on the index also tend to suffer the highest price of success."

For now, Brum continues to be a shining example of what life could be like if you choose to live here instead of the sprawling mess of London.