London has increased its margin over Paris as Europes leading city to locate a business according to European Cities Monitor (ECM), the annual location survey of Europes leading companies carried out by global real estate consultant Cushman & Wakefield.

The UK capital is now the top-rated city for seven out of the 12 factors that are ranked to then give the overall league table. This year, London has improved its scores, among other factors, for availability of office space (rising to number one slot having overtaken Berlin and Madrid) and moved slightly ahead of Paris to be the best city in Europe for internal transport, (evidence, if any were needed, that directors and managers of Europe’s largest companies have never used the northern line during the rush hour!)

European Cities Monitor is based on interviews with senior managers and board directors in charge of 507 top European companies. It looks at factors regarded as important by companies when deciding where to locate, and then compares the performance of 33 of Europes leading business cities on each factor. Communication factors are seen as the most important, followed by cost and then quality of life.

James Young, head of the City of London office of Cushman & Wakefield, comments: "With the current trend towards globalisation, London has consolidated its position as part of the elite group of global cities, together with New York and Tokyo, and in all likelihood Shanghai in the near future. This puts London in a league apart when comparing it with other European cities."

In last years ECM, London achieved a weighted score of 0.87, which has now increased to 0.91, while Paris has gone from 0.60 to 0.59. Paris comes second for five of the factors. This year it falls in the rankings for quality of life (down two to 4th) and freedom from pollution (down three to 29th). Last year Barcelona overtook Amsterdam to take 5th position in the overall ranking, which was the first time that the top five had changed since Cushman & Wakefield had first carried out the survey in 1990, when Barcelona was in 11th position. This year, Barcelona takes one more upward step to leapfrog Brussels and take 4th position, with Frankfurt retaining third place.