SmogRank / History / City race
Cities in United Kingdom, worst air first, day by day
Each measured city's average over the 30 days to every day since January 2023, worst first. Find your own city to follow it through the race, or keep to one country.
The worst cities in United Kingdom for PM2.5 over the 30 days to 17 May 2025: Hoo 12.1 µg/m³, Canvey Island 12.1 µg/m³ and Bexley 11.8 µg/m³.
- 1HooEngland12.1
- 2Canvey IslandEngland12.1
- 3BexleyEngland11.8
- 4ScunthorpeEngland11.7
- 5LondonEngland11.7
- 6Clacton-on-SeaEngland11.1
- 7BrightlingseaEngland11.1
- 8LutonEngland10.4
- 9SouthamptonEngland10.2
- 10BirminghamEngland10.1
- 11SpekeEngland10.0
- 12BrightonEngland10.0
- 13PortsmouthEngland9.9
- 14HayesEngland9.9
- 15NewmarketEngland9.8
- 16ManchesterEngland9.8
- 17BurwellEngland9.8
- 18AndoverEngland9.6
- 19Kingston upon HullEngland9.5
- 20LeedsEngland9.3
+ 46 more cities, the next at 9.2 µg/m³
Not counted on this day, too few days measured: Northampton since 2 May 2025, Westbury since 30 Apr 2025, Grays since 10 Apr 2025 and Dagenham since 2 Apr 2025.
Cities counted each day
A city's number is its average over the 30 days, shown only when 21 of them were measured (5 of 7 on the 7-day race), the same minimum as the 30- and 7-day boards. A city whose monitors go quiet fades out where it stood rather than sliding down, so a gap never reads as cleaner air. Some large countries are thin or missing because their monitors' licences don't allow reuse. How we rank.
Not covered: the government monitoring networks of China and Turkey, which publish only on their own websites. We are building the reader for China's network. Turkey's network doesn't answer requests from outside the country, so we can't read it. Most cities there are missing from this board, not clean. Why.