Oldham has been ranked as one of the top worst places in the country to start a business.

New research carried out by Utility Bidder has compiled the best and worst cities and towns in the UK to start a business.

The study measured factors such as the fastest Wi-Fi and download speeds, the highest number of business births, business survival rates, the percentage of people in employment and those with an NVQ level 4 or above and the places with the highest median salary.

The data was compiled using figures from the Office of National Statistics, Speedtest (for download speeds) and Nomis (for people in employment/NVQ level).

When comparing the data, each town and city was given an overall "business hotspot score".

Out of 50 local authorities across the country, Oldham scored poorly with a business hotspot score of just 2.58, ranking the borough as third out of the top 10 worst UK areas to start a business.

Kingston upon Hull and Sunderland only narrowly beat Oldham as the top two worst places with hotspot scores of 2.16 and 2.14 respectively.

Meanwhile, Bristol bagged the top spot as the best place with a hotspot score of 7.85.

When compared to Oldham, Bristol had faster download speeds, more business births and a higher five year survival rate.

Bristol also has more active businesses (20,610) compared to the borough (8,080) - and a higher average salary at £29,932 compared to Oldham's median of £24,174.

However, when it came to the one year survival rate of businesses, Oldham scored slightly higher with a percentage of 94.5 compared to Bristol (92.8).

Edinburgh and Leeds also scored highly compared to the rest of the country,  with hotspot scores of 7.81 and 7.66 respectively, putting them in second and third place as the best places to start a business in the country.