– Manchester, London, Nottingham and Newcastle are home to the UK’s biggest sneakerheads –
– Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent and Hull aren’t so fussed about their casual footwear –
New data analysis by The Sole Supplier, the UK’s hub for casual footwear, reveals Manchester is the Sneaker Capital of the UK.
The Sole Supplier has ranked the largest UK cities out of ten for their sneaker culture, judging the quality of their shoe shops, search-traffic for popular trainers on Google, hype around new releases and the number of visitors to The Sole Supplier website.
| Most trainer-obsessed UK cities | ||
| Overall rank | City | Overall score (out of 10) |
| 1 | Manchester | 8.49 |
| 2 | London | 5.77 |
| 3 | Nottingham | 5.43 |
| 4 | Newcastle-upon-Tyne | 5.41 |
| 5 | Liverpool | 4.82 |
| 6 | Belfast | 4.81 |
| 7 | Glasgow | 4.68 |
| 8 | Birmingham | 4.43 |
| 9 | Sheffield | 4.15 |
| 10 | Coventry | 4.07 |
Manchester takes the top spot (scoring an impressive 8.49/10), helped by high marks for the number of sneaker-related Google searches and hype-levels around new releases. London, Nottingham, Newcastle and Liverpool make up the rest of the top 5 most trainer-obsessed UK cities.
Surprisingly, London misses out on the crown despite its status as one of the world’s four fashion capitals. London did however take second spot overall, let down mainly by the quality of its shoe shops.
Belfast ranked highest for its shoe shop rating, with a perfect score of 10 but only finished in 6th place overall, dragged down by low hype around high-heat releases.
Manchester, Newcastle and Liverpool have the biggest ‘hypebeasts’ searching for the most anticipated trainer drops, like this year’s Off-White x Nike Air Jordan 1 ‘White’ and the Adidas Yeezy Boost 350 V2 colourways.
At the other end of the table, Stoke-on-Trent placed last with an average score of just 1.83, with Hull, Bradford, Sunderland and Brighton following closely, suggesting residents aren’t too fussed about their casual footwear.
| Least trainer-obsessed UK cities | ||
| Overall rank | City | Overall score (out of 10) |
| 11 | Edinburgh | 4.07 |
| 12 | Bristol | 3.91 |
| 13 | Leeds | 3.33 |
| 14 | Leicester | 2.72 |
| 15 | Cardiff | 2.68 |
| 16 | Brighton | 2.53 |
| 17 | Sunderland | 2.30 |
| 18 | Bradford | 2.28 |
| 19 | Hull | 2.22 |
| 20 | Stoke-on-Trent | 1.83 |
George Sullivan, CEO at The Sole Supplier commented:
“The UK has become a nation of sneaker-heads as streetwear becomes the era-defining style. It’s interesting to map the hotspots for trainer culture and exciting to see Manchester, London, Nottingham, Newcastle and Liverpool lead the pack.
“When it comes to brand loyalty, the UK’s largest cities all pledged allegiance to Nike in 2018 based on traffic to The Sole Supplier release pages, except Glaswegians who were most keen to get their hands on the Yeezy Powerphase Calabasas Grey. Let’s see what 2019 holds in store!”
To see each city’s results in full, please visit The Sole Supplier’s dedicated webpage here.