This report highlights the continued unevenness of FDI patterns in England's towns prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. London became and increasingly dominant recipient of FDI during the period 1997-2019 with rapid growth in FDI projects, whereas small and medium sized towns FDI has been stagnant.  A handful of core cities in the North, and particularly Leeds and Manchester also enjoyed impressive levels of growth, particularly since 2008. However, overall the regional gap remains larger than ever, demonstrating the urgent need to further increase the North's attractiveness to investors. The North attracted only 16% of English FDI projects in 2019, despite making up around 27% of England's population. Sales and marketing made up the largest FDI sector in the North of England by some margin, although in the North East this sector came joint first alongside manufacturing.