The Best Cities in the UK to Celebrate Your Love

Love is in the air! Care.com has analysed which cities in the UK provide the best opportunities for a romantic date.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkS5XbdTDcFrom gazing into each other’s eyes across a checkered tablecloth to lying wistfully under sundrenched trees, each of us have our own idea of romantic bliss. But we can all agree, there is no better feeling than that of being adored.

In the midst of our hectic lives, it can often be difficult to find the time, the place and the childcare to consciously spend time together. But with Valentine’s Day coming up on February 14^th, what better time to treat your loved one and take them somewhere special?

With this in mind, Care.com has gone on a mission to find out where in the UK is the best place to give yourself over to love and enjoy romantic dates with your special someone. Therefore, the team from Care.com compared 45 cities in terms of popular dating locations (restaurants, cinemas, green spaces), the variety of romantic gifts available (flowers, jewellery and sweets) and the availability of childcare.

It is time to reveal the UK’s City of Love:

You can find the full ranking with all 45 cities at the end of the article.

York is the UK’s City of Love

According to the data analysis, the title of the UK’s City of Love goes to York for providing its residents with great opportunities for the perfect date night.  

York has it all – from the best gift shops to plenty of dating spots – except for one thing: The babysitters that parents need to make it out for a date night. But don’t worry as Care.com can help you find a sitter in your area so you don’t have to spend the evening microwaving leftovers and falling asleep on the couch! 

In close second is Reading, which also boasts a wide range of romantic date choices while offering the best chances of finding childcare.

Closely followed is Manchester, who also lands one of the top spots. 

No matter where you live, it is important to grab every opportunity for a romantic evening, so get out there and enjoy a date just the two of you!

Results

Methodology

The data analysis compares the 45 biggest cities in the UK in terms of their conditions for a romantic date. It is based on three categories: Dating locations, gifts and child care.

• The dating locations refer to the most popular activities for a date and includes the density of Michelin restaurants in a radius of 20 km (Source: Viamichelin*, January 2019*), cinemas (Source: Listfilm*, January 2019) as well as the share of green and natural areas as a factor favoring activities outside in the nature (source: Cole, B., King, S., Ogutu, B., Palmer, D., Smith, G., Balzter, H. (2015). Corine Land Cover 2012 for the UK, Jersey and Guernsey. NERC Environmental Information Data Centre https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/documents/32533dd6-7c1b-43e1-b892-e80d61a5ea1d. Copyright rests with the European Commission; Acknowledgement: Produced by the University of Leicester, The Centre for Landscape and Climate Research and Specto Natura and supported by Defra and the European Environment Agency under Grant Agreement 3541/B2012/R0-GIO/EEA.55055 with funding by the European Union).
• Classical gifts among couples are flowers, jewelry and sweets. Therefore, the number of florists, jewelers, confectioneries and gift shops (Source: Yell.com*, January 2019) in relation to the number of inhabitants has been included. The more providers per capita, the easier it is to find a suitable gift for your loved one.
• Since for parents, the biggest struggles for a date night is to find a babysitter, the number of child carers per capita was included (Care.com, 2019).

Metrics within the three categories were normalized on a scale of 0 to 100 and combined using a weighted average with the following weights: Dating locations (40%), Gifts (40%), Childcare (20%). The analysis was only descriptive. The lower a city’s ranking, the better it is.

*Research was completed and data sourced by Care.com independently.