A report published today by the university has revealed that productivity levels in Scotland were 46% higher than Wales. Levels in London and the South East of England were the only ones found to be higher than Scotland. Scotland fell behind London by around 40%, yet the gap with South East England was only 6%.

The study was conducted using data from 2010 to 2016 to estimate the total productivity in British regions and individual nations.

The researchers also studied cities across Britain. Edinburgh and Glasgow were the only Scottish cites studied and came out second and third behind London. These cities were ahead of the overall Scottish national average for productivity. They both scored higher than the Scottish average in the manufacturing industries and high technology services.

There have been concerns about Scotland’s poor labour productivity, as a different measure of the country’s productivity in regards to labour proved it to be low. This measure of productivity through the average output of every hour worked was significantly less when compared with similar nations.

However, data for the first quarter of 2019 showed 0.4% growth compared with the final three months of 2018.

The Scottish Government has made a target for the country to be ranked in the first quartile of nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. However, recently Scotland has been in the third quartile.