Walk into a pharmacy in Sunderland and there is a 78% chance it is independently owned. In Exeter, that figure drops to 54%. The gap — 24 percentage points — reflects fundamentally different market structures between English cities, with consequences for patients, professionals, and planners.

PharmSee has now profiled pharmacy landscapes across multiple English cities using NHSBSA dispensing data and the NHS Digital contractor register. One consistent finding is that the independent pharmacy share is not a national average that applies uniformly. It varies city by city, shaped by history, demographics, and the specific chains that have built (or withdrawn from) local estates.

The city-by-city ranking

Based on PharmSee's analysis of registered pharmacy branches within a three-mile radius of each city centre, ranked by independent share:

The range is substantial. Sunderland's pharmacy market is overwhelmingly independent, with only 12 chain-operated branches across the entire three-mile ring. Exeter's is the most chain-dependent of the cities measured, with nearly half of its pharmacies operated by national multiples.

What drives the differences

Several factors appear to influence how independent a city's pharmacy market is:

Population density and deprivation. Cities with higher deprivation levels tend to have higher independent shares. Sunderland and Liverpool — both in the top quartile of the English Index of Multiple Deprivation — have independent shares above 67%. This is consistent with the observation that independent pharmacies often serve communities that national chains may consider commercially marginal.

Chain withdrawal patterns. The LloydsPharmacy exit from community pharmacy in 2023 affected some cities more than others. Cities that had large Lloyds estates (such as Sheffield, with 11 zero-revenue Lloyds entries still on the register) may have seen independent operators or smaller chains acquire some of those branches, boosting the independent count. However, PharmSee cannot confirm acquisition patterns from dispensing data alone.

University and tourism effects. Oxford and Bath — both university cities with significant tourist populations — have lower independent shares than northern industrial cities. This may reflect the commercial viability of chain pharmacy models in high-footfall areas with transient populations, though this is speculative.

Regional chain presence. Some cities have strong regional chains that are classified separately from independents. Manchester has 12 Cohens Chemist branches (11% of the total), Liverpool has 7 Rowlands branches (7%). Whether these are categorised as "chain" or "independent" affects the calculation. PharmSee classifies any branch operated under a national or regional brand name as non-independent, regardless of size.

Why it matters

The independent share affects several things that pharmacy professionals and planners should consider:

Hiring visibility. Independent pharmacies rarely post vacancies on the national job boards that PharmSee tracks. In a city like Sunderland (78% independent), the 1,327 vacancies tracked across PharmSee's 11 employer sources significantly understate total hiring activity. Much of the recruitment happens through local networks, word of mouth, and direct approaches.

Salary transparency. Chains are more likely to publish salary ranges in their job listings. In chain-dominated cities, salary data is more abundant. In independent-dominated cities, the community pharmacy salary gap is wider — meaning pharmacists may have less information with which to negotiate.

Competition dynamics. A market where 78% of branches are independently owned behaves differently from one where chains control half the estate. Independent pharmacies compete on service, location, and personal relationships. Chain pharmacies compete on brand, opening hours, and cross-selling with retail operations.

Resilience. Independent pharmacies are individually more vulnerable to economic shocks (a single owner retiring, a lease expiry, a funding cut), but collectively the diversified ownership structure means no single corporate decision can remove a large tranche of branches from a city. The Lloyds exit demonstrated this: cities with high Lloyds concentration lost multiple branches at once, while cities dominated by independents were unaffected.

Classification caveats

PharmSee's chain classification uses contractor names from the NHS Digital register. Branches are classified as chain-operated if the contractor name matches a known national or regional chain (Boots, Lloyds, Well, Cohens, Rowlands, Tesco, Asda, Superdrug, Morrisons). All others are classified as independent.

This approach has known limitations. Some independent pharmacies trade under franchise arrangements that are not visible in the contractor name. Some small regional chains with fewer than five branches may be classified as independent when they are, in fact, multi-site operations. The independent share figures should therefore be treated as approximate rather than precise.

For a more detailed breakdown of any city's pharmacy landscape, readers can explore the PharmSee pharmacy search or run an area analysis at the location tool. Salary data by role and region is available on the salary guide.

Data sources: NHSBSA dispensing data (most recent quarterly release), NHS Digital pharmacy contractor register, PharmSee database snapshot April 2026. All figures represent three-mile radius from each city's central postcode. Chain classification based on contractor name matching; some edge cases may be misclassified.