Property: Ripon named 'one of the easiest cities to move to' in Great Britain
Ripon has been rated in the UK top ten least stressful cities to move to this summer in a new survey.
The ancient city is right up there with the likes of Salford, Chichester, Cambridge, St Davids, Lincoln, Durham, Manchester, Stirling, Brighton, Inverness, Lancaster and Exeter in cities in Britain that scored highest thanks to factors that help make moving day faster, cheaper, and less stressful.
The data on the UK’s most move-friendly cities top 20 was collected and compiled in May 2025 by Pay Less for Storage.
The firm combined publicly available data with real-world mapping and rental listings to assess how easy it is to move house in each location.
UK’s top ten least stressful cities to move to
1 Salford: 84 points
2 Chichester: 80 points
3 Cambridge: 80 points
4 St David’s: 78 points
5 Lincoln: 78 points
6 Durham: 78 points
7 Manchester: 76 points
8 Stirling: 76 points
9 Brighton: 76 points 10= Inverness: 74 points
10= Lancaster: 74 points
10= Ripon: 74 points
10= Exeter: 74 points
Five key metrics for each city
People per Available Home: Using city-level property data from Zoopla, divided by the city’s population.
Percentage of Homes Available Chain-Free: Using city-level property data from Zoopla, comparing the number of chain-free homes to the total number of homes available.
People per Short-Term Rental: Taken from AirDNA, using active rental listings on platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo as a proxy for short-let flexibility.
People per Storage Facility: Based on Google Maps search results for “self storage [CITY]”, divided by the city’s population.
People per Van Hire Location: Based on Google Maps search results for “van rental [CITY]”, divided by the city’s population.
Each city was given a score for each category, then ranked across all five.
These rankings were standardised and combined to create an overall “move-friendliness” score out of 100.
Ripon scored 74 points, coming tenth equal with three other UK cities in the listing.
Matthew Wallace of Pay Less For Storage said: “Moving house is never fun but some cities make moving a lot easier than others.”