Birmingham B1's operating-Boots average of £55,435 per branch is the lowest in PharmSee's nine-city atlas (cycles 15–18). It sits roughly half of Liverpool's £102,970 and a third of Plymouth's £150,572. The cycle 17 backlog asked the obvious follow-up: is this a Birmingham-specific anomaly, or does the West Midlands Boots estate underperform across the whole conurbation?
Cycle 19 pulled fresh 3-mile catchment data for the four largest West Midlands cities outside B1 — Wolverhampton, Coventry, Dudley and Walsall — and the answer is decisively city-core specific.
The wider West Midlands: operating averages are normal
| City | Postcode | Boots branches | Operating | Ghost % | Op avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham | B1 1BB | 8 | 6 | 25% | £55,435 |
| Wolverhampton | WV1 1RT | 7 | 3 | 57% | £137,266 |
| Coventry | CV1 5RW | 10 | 7 | 30% | £96,292 |
| Dudley | DY1 1HP | 4 | 4 | 0% | £108,906 |
| Walsall | WS1 1TP | 4 | 3 | 25% | £78,409 |
Wolverhampton's operating branches average £137,266 — higher than Liverpool, Nottingham and Leeds. Coventry averages £96,292. Dudley averages £108,906 with a 100% operating rate (no ghost branches on the register). Walsall averages £78,409.
The four wider West Midlands cities collectively operate 17 Boots branches at an average of £106,717. That is not a regional underperformance. It is roughly where you would expect a mid-range English secondary city cluster to sit.
Birmingham B1 remains the outlier
B1's six operating branches are:
| Contractor | Postcode | Distance | Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| FNM58 | B4 7TA | 0.36 mi | £85,790 |
| FCG18 | B17 9NR | 2.31 mi | £83,432 |
| FWA64 | B67 5BS | 2.99 mi | £60,322 |
| FAK78 | B66 3PR | 2.46 mi | £51,089 |
| FRV46 | B42 1AA | 2.58 mi | £29,056 |
| FJV53 | B1 2JF | 0.49 mi | £22,922 |
FJV53 Bull Ring (B1 2JF) at £22,922 is the lowest operating Boots revenue in PharmSee's entire English atlas. Its sister branch FNM58 sits 0.13 miles away at £85,790 — nearly 4× the revenue. The B1 catchment is overloaded with small urban-core branches that Wolverhampton, Dudley and Coventry don't have.
Wolverhampton is the new ghost-rate leader
The cycle 19 headline finding is not about operating revenue — it's about the register. Wolverhampton's WV1 1RT 3-mile ring contains 7 Boots contractor codes, of which 4 are ghost (zero-revenue). That is a 57% ghost rate — the highest in PharmSee's 13-city Boots audit, higher than Newcastle NE1 (52.9%) and Liverpool L1 (50%).
| Contractor | Postcode | Status |
|---|---|---|
| FKY89 | WV1 3ER | Operating £154,186 |
| FG043 | WV3 7LF | Operating £142,972 |
| FH473 | WV11 1BP | Operating £114,640 |
| FRT58 | WV3 7HT | Ghost |
| FD642 | WV11 1BQ | Ghost |
| FV523 | WV3 8HG | Ghost |
| FLC50 | WV14 6PW | Ghost |
The three operating Wolverhampton branches are big — FKY89 at £154,186 is above the Liverpool per-branch average. The four ghosts are NHS Digital register artefacts from Boots's post-2023 rationalisation. The real-estate estate in Wolverhampton is 3 branches, not 7.
Dudley, by contrast, has zero ghost branches. All four DY1 1HP Boots codes are operating and dispensing. Dudley is one of only two cities in PharmSee's atlas (with Bristol) where every Boots contractor code is live.
What this means for closure-watchers
The Birmingham B1 2JF closure watch PharmSee opened in cycle 18 looks even more exposed after this audit:
- The wider West Midlands estate is healthy. Dudley, Wolverhampton (post-ghost) and Coventry all run at the £95–£140k per-branch tier.
- B1 is the only city core where the ghost-corrected operating count still produces a £55k average. The weakness is structural to the Birmingham inner catchment, not the Midlands.
- The likely closure trajectory is within B1, not across the wider conurbation. FJV53 (Bull Ring) at £22,922 with an 0.13-mile sister is the single most exposed operating branch PharmSee has measured.
Wolverhampton's 57% ghost rate is the cycle 19 discovery that unseats Newcastle as the "most rationalised Boots city-core" in our atlas. The register has not caught up with the 2023 Boots exit in the Black Country.
Explore the data
- Wolverhampton pharmacy search — 67 pharmacies, 89 GP practices
- Coventry pharmacy search — 96 pharmacies, 106 GP practices
- Birmingham B1 branch audit
- PharmSee location analyzer — run the 3-mile audit for your own city
Methodology
All data from PharmSee's NHS Digital pharmacy register (cycle 19 pull, April 2026). totalRevenue derived from dispensing items × £1.29 plus services revenue. A "ghost" branch is a contractor code on the register with zero dispensing items over the 12-month window — the cycle 14 convention. City catchments are 3-mile rings from the listed city-core postcode via PharmSee's location analyzer.
A proper non-operating-contractor filter would collapse these 13 Boots-audit totals into a single operating-only view; that feature is on the cycle 19 backlog and is the highest-ROI infrastructure item PharmSee has identified.