UK Areas on High Alert Over Rising Living Costs

Who’s Feeling the Heat? A Google‑Driven Peek at the UK’s Cost‑of‑Living Angst

Investing Reviews pulled up their magnifying glass and sifted through Google search data to find out which cities and towns are buzzing the loudest about the cost‑of‑living crisis.

How the Study Was Crunching Numbers

Collected over 280 common search phrases related to the crisis.
Calculated the average monthly search volume for each area over the past year.
Ranked places from “most worried” to “least worried” based on searches per 10 000 residents.

The Big Five: Where the Anxiety is Highest

Here’s the leaderboard of the most concerned spots:

Walsall – 431 searches/10 000 pop. Key terms: top savings accounts, interest rate, savings account interest rate, savings accounts.
Bath – 333 searches/10 000 pop. Adds mortgage interest rates to the mix.
Norwich – 321 searches/10 000 pop. A whopping 480 of those focus on top savings accounts.
Wrexham – 313 searches/10 000 pop. Also the most worried spot in Wales.
Hereford – 310 searches/10 000 pop. Mortgage interest rate again tops the list.

The Middle Ten: Still Worried, But Less Urgent

Once you’ve crossed the top five, the concern drops a notch, but it’s still there:

Edinburgh – 306 searches/10 000 pop. The city in Scotland with the highest overall monthly search volume.
Chester – 303 searches/10 000 pop. Highest interest savings accounts among its hot topics.
Lincoln – 282 searches/10 000 pop. More than 1,300 hits on “top savings accounts.”
Inverness – 281 searches/10 000 pop.
Wigan – 264 searches/10 000 pop.
Wakefield – 68 searches/10 000 pop. The spot with the lowest concern; still, top savings accounts make up the majority of searches.
Other cities such as Dudley, Bradford, Sunderland, Kingston upon Hull, Doncaster, Canterbury, Blackpool, Derby and Stoke‑on‑Trent round out the list.

What’s Actually Driving the Search Madness?

In almost every town, the most frequently searched term is “top savings accounts.” Five places—Crawley, Derby, Liverpool, London, and Sheffield—lean more on “interest rate.” The common takeaway? People are juggling two big monsters:

Finding ways to stash cash (the savings crunch).
Bracing for rising interest rates (the debt dilemma).

CEO Insights

Simon Jones, CEO of Investing Reviews put it in plain words: “This study gives us a crystal clear view of financial worries across the UK. It pinpoints where the struggle is most intense and what folks are anxious about—saving money and falling interest rates.”