A handful of cities from central and eastern Europe stole the spotlight in the 2024 iteration of fDi Intelligence’s flagship European Cities and Regions of the Future ranking.
Frankfurt in Germany; Wrocław in Poland; and Luxembourg City, the capital of the namesake county, rose through the ranks to top their respective categories: large cities, mid-sized cities and small cities.
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Meanwhile, London confirmed its leadership in the major cities category, with Barcelona standing out as the top city for its FDI strategy. Among regions, Paris Region (Île-de-France) won among large regions, with North Holland and the Dublin Region faring strongly too.
The foreign direct investment (FDI) landscape in Europe proved a challenging one in 2023, with investment falling from a year earlier both in terms of number of projects and capital pledges. Overall, Europe’s share of the global FDI pie shrank in 2023, accounting for roughly 29% of the total projects announced in 2023 — down from roughly 36% in 2022.
Against this backdrop, the European Cities and Regions of the Future 2024 ranking benchmarked against each other the most promising investment destinations across Europe. It assessed as many as 330 European cities divided by population size into five groups — major, large, mid-sized, small and micro cities — as well as 141 European regions divided into three groups — large, mid-sized and small regions. It also assessed 38 local enterprise partnerships in the UK.
Everything was ranked by performance across five subcategories: economic potential; business friendliness; connectivity; human capital and lifestyle; and cost effectiveness.
The European Cities and Regions of the Future 2024 ranking collected surveys from European investment promotion agencies for another category: the ‘FDI Strategy’ category.
A judging panel, made of three experts in investment promotion and economic development — Carolina Arriagada Peters, Sean Duggan, Judith O’Doherty — as well as fDi’s editor Jacopo Dettoni and reporter Seth O’Farrell, reviewed 117 submissions from cities and regions across Europe. This is the only qualitative category in the otherwise data-driven ranking that feeds into the overall results.
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Cities results
The trio made up of London, Amsterdam and Dublin continues to top the major cities category.
The data shows that the UK’s capital is Europe’s top city for talent availability and lifestyle. It is among the best connected cities, offers the best business environment and has the biggest economic potential of all major European cities. Amsterdam followed on its heels thanks to a similar combination of talent availability, connectivity, business environment and economic potential, while Dublin gained its third place largely thanks to its economic prospects.
In the large cities category, Frankfurt upstaged German peer Hamburg to win this year’s ranking in its category, with Düsseldorf coming in third.
In the mid-sized cities category, Poland’s Wrocław made a statement as it clinched the first place ahead of Zürich — last year’s winner — and Vilnius.
In the small cities category, Luxembourg City stormed to the top of the ranking, while Zug confirmed its leadership in the micro cities category.
Regions results
Paris Region (Île-de-France) reiterated its prowess among large regions as it entered a pivotal year. In just a few months, the region will host the 2024 Olympics, which will see a flurry of new infrastructure come online and boost further its competitiveness. West Midlands came in as second, North-Rhine Westphalia in Germany third.
In the mid-sized regions category, North Holland once again clinched the top position; the same applies to the Dublin Region in the small regions category.
FDI strategy
In the FDI strategy category, Barcelona once again won the favour of the judges for its articulated investment promotion strategy, as the city continues to grow its tech cluster and embrace industry 4.0.
In the large cities bracket, Glasgow takes this year’s top prize; Newcastle won in the mid-sized cities category, while two Irish cities — Cork and Limerick — won in the small and micro cities category, respectively.
Among regions, Paris Region (Île-de-France) confirmed its leadership also for its investment promotion strategy, with Northern Ireland winning in the mid-sized region category and the Mid-West Region of Ireland in the small region category.
Download the PDF to explore this year’s winners.
Explore previous rankings:
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