Liverpool has the best mobile coverage of any city in the UK, according to new research which also shows that Manchester, Birmingham and Coventry all beat London in mobile performance.

Digital business RootMetrics tested signal in cities throughout the UK and used the data to compile a chart of the 16 most populated places. The results were based on four leading networks of EE, O2, 3 and Vodafone.

Liverpool came top of the pile for overall performance and also came first in several sub-categories for reliability, mobile internet, call quality and texting. Edinburgh was the only other city to top a table, coming first for speed.

The research reveal wild variances in performance between cities, even those that are geographically close. While Liverpool topped most charts, Hull came last across the board and lagged in areas such as internet connections and speed of access.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the UK capital failed to top any of the charts and ranked 14 out of 16 in one measure.

Commenting on London’s performance, the report read: “If you expected London to come out on top, you may be surprised. It was ranked 5th on the list in our overall category, while its rankings in the other categories ranged from 2nd in speed to 14th in call.”