Norwich grew faster than London, Manchester and Bristol in the second quarter of 2017, research has revealed.

The city increased gross value added (GVA) by 2% to £2.8bn with employment also growing by 1.1%, up to 136,800 in work – according to the study by law firm Irwin Mitchell and the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

However, Norwich's technology sector was only ranked 28th in the UK with a GVA for 2015 of £73.5m, showing a three-year increase of 17% and making up 3% of the city's total GVA.

The study valued the Ipswich economy at £4.5bn and said its annual employment growth was 0.6%, taking the total employment level to 80,900.

The report said: 'Ipswich and Norwich underline East Anglia's leading role in terms of research, development and technology. A number of science parks and research clusters help the cities attract a highly educated workforce resulting in decent growth rates.'