Slough – a town often mocked in Britain for being dull and dreary — has been named the country's best town or city to work in for the third consecutive year, according to a ranking published Wednesday.
In its fourth annual analysis of the top places to work in the U.K., global jobs site Glassdoor scored towns and cities based on job opportunities, the cost of living and job satisfaction.
The town of Slough, which should rhyme with cow when pronounced correctly, is in the English county of Berkshire, to the west of London.
Slough, the drab setting for British TV show "The Office," doesn't have the best reputation — in 1937, a poem by John Betjeman referred to it as "the mess they call a town" — but it is home to some of the country's biggest companies, with the highest concentration of corporate headquarters outside of London. Major companies with operations in Slough include AkzoNobel, Reckitt Benckiser and telecoms firm Telefonica.
It was ranked first place in Glassdoor's study, with the median salary for jobs posted there coming in at £30,139 ($39,086). The median salary in the U.K. was £30,420 in 2019, according to the country's Office for National Statistics.
Glassdoor's analysis cited "a good volume of jobs along with a reasonable cost of living" as the reasons for Slough's continued reign. Analysts also noted that Crossrail — a new transport line connecting the town to London — would be opening in 2021.
In second place was the city of Cambridge, which offered a slightly higher median salary of £31,941, while Gloucester, where workers took home average yearly earnings of £25,116, was ranked third.
Guildford and Reading rounded out the top five. London did not feature in the ranking of the best 25 towns and cities for U.K. workers, which Glassdoor put down to a number of factors.
"People in London are generally satisfied, and the capital city will always have the largest amount of jobs available — plus high average salaries," its report said. "However, this doesn't tell the whole story. When it comes to availability of good jobs, ratio of candidates per job, house price levels and general cost of living, London really suffers."
Top 10 UK towns and cities to work in
- Slough
- Cambridge
- Gloucester
- Guildford
- Reading
- Stoke-on-Trent
- Manchester
- Blackpool
- Chelmsford
- Oxford
Regionally, England's northwest featured most heavily in the top 25, with five towns and cities in the area included in the ranking. Dundee was the only Scottish city to make the list, while Belfast was the only Northern Irish city to be ranked among the top 25.
"Companies are continuing to look outside of the big cities to set up offices and recruit local talent," Amanda Stansell, senior research analyst at Glassdoor, said in a press release Wednesday.
"The growth in flexible working also means employees are no longer spending every day in the office, meaning the location of the company is less important than it once was," she added. "Companies can get away with not having offices in the larger, expensive cities like London, as employees are prioritizing flexibility and convenience over the prestige of an office address."