Not so long ago it was a city most people tended to bypass or leave as soon as possible in search of brighter lights and greener grass – a place of crumbling concrete, ring-roads and miserable shopping centres. Not now.

“Birmingham’s a great place, it’s changed hugely in the last few years,” said Omar Budeiri, a young businessman who has just quit London in favour of a trendy flat in Birmingham’s revived and increasingly funky Jewellery Quarter.

“There’s a lot of people setting up really interesting businesses, especially in the hi-tech industries. There are good independent coffee houses and clothes shops and you can have as fun a night out here as in London at half the price.”

Figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that the number of young people leaving London and heading north and west is rising significantly.

In the year to June last year almost 60,000 thirtysomethings left the capital – the highest number on record and a 10% increase on 2010.

According to the figures, which are based largely on NHS registrations and probably reflect only a fraction of the true number, there was a net outflow of more than 20,000 from London. Bristol was the second favourite destination, followed by Manchester, Nottingham and Oxford. But topping the table was Birmingham.

Business bosses in the West Midlands are noticing an influx of single people in their 20s and 30s hoping for a better work/life balance but also families heading to the UK’s second city in search of bigger houses with gardens.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Budeiri, 28, who works for ROAR, a communications provider. He grew up in Worcestershire and went to Birmingham University. After graduation, he helped launch a startup in London. “I thought I’d stay there for the rest of my life,” he said.

He was on £50,000 a year and living in a flat in Elephant and Castle. “Don’t get me wrong, that is good money. You’re not scratching around.” But he still jumped at the chance to move to Birmingham, where he bought a flat for a quarter of what it would have cost in London.

“It was an economic no-brainer. I wouldn’t move back to London unless I was on triple my salary. It’s just not worth it. In the Jewellery Quarter there’s a really good pub life, cool little bars, it feels like the place to be.”

Gayna and Faisal Zargar, 36 and 37, are settling down in Birmingham, having moved from south-west London with their one-year-old son, Thomas. They were living in a rented “one and a half bedroom” flat in Wimbledon village but realised that the same money could buy a five-bedroom house in Kings Norton, south of the city centre.

The move meant that Ms Zargar could give up her job at a financial services company, stop making a tortuous journey across London to Canary Wharf each day and concentrate on being a full-time mother. “I must admit Birmingham wouldn’t have been my first choice to live,” she said. “But it’s worked out really well.”

Her husband has family and friends in Birmingham who have made her welcome. “I’ve been surprised by how green Birmingham is,” she said. “I love the parks and the Botanical Gardens are a little oasis. Everything is close together. You don’t have to spend hours on the tube getting anywhere. And it’s so easy to get out into the countryside.”

Neil Rami, chief executive of the city’s strategic marketing partnership, Marketing Birmingham, said the city was benefiting from an economic boom. “This is a dynamic place, a city where you can build a career,” he said.

Global companies such as Deutsche Bank are moving people in. Five years ago the bank had about 50 people in the city; by the end of next year there will be about 2,000. And smaller tech startups are piling in. The construction headquarters of HS2 is to create 1,500 jobs in Birmingham.

But Rami believes there is more to it than just economics. He believes families such as the Zargars are being drawn into cities rather than making the traditional retreat from London to the countryside. “They are enjoying urban life, the culture cities like Birmingham can offer, the cosmopolitan nature of the place.”

David and Heather Richardson, of Midlands relocation specialists Fish Home Finders, said they were sometimes contacted by people alarmed that they were being relocated to Birmingham. “They just think of it as being Spaghetti Junction and motorways,” said Mr Richardson. But after orientation days taking in the Georgian squares, the canalside developments, the leafy suburbs, perhaps one of the four Michelin-starred restaurants, the glitzy Bullring shopping centre and even glitzier Library of Birmingham, they tend to be reassured.

Heather Bates, 28, a senior surveyor with property brokers Colliers International, moved to the capital after graduating. She lived in a rented flat in Notting Hill and was planning to buy in west London.

“But I couldn’t keep up with the market, it was moving so quickly.” Plus friends were leaving. “London is such a transient place,” she said. So she moved back to Birmingham, and is now living with her family in Sutton Coldfield while she looks for a place to buy in her home city.

“I’ve noticed a big difference,” Bates said. “The city centre is vibrant and the nightlife good.”

Among her favourite haunts are the “quirky” Friday night street-food-fest the Digbeth Dining Club and craft beer specialist the Pure Bar and Kitchen. “I’ve no regrets about moving back,” she said.

London-born Martina Reitbauer moved from Queen’s Park in the north-west of the capital to Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, where she has a home and premises for her interior design business. Part of her work is renovating furniture, lights and artefacts. “A great bonus here is that you can find craftspeople and technicians who you can work with. There’s a highly skilled workforce here.”

Reitbauer, who is in her 40s, is still tempted back to London. “I’ve just been to the Roundhouse in Camden, but it’s easy to get to – just because you’ve moved from London, it doesn’t mean you can’t pop back to visit.

“And Birmingham airport is brilliant. It’s much more accessible than Heathrow or Gatwick. You can leave home and be in Barcelona in two or three hours, door to door.”

Of course, there are problems. The city council, the largest in Europe, is making painful cuts and there are still corners of the city blighted by Birmingham’s industrial decline. Reitbauer said she sees too much rubbish during her training runs around the city’s canals. “They have to get the streets cleaner,” she said. “But I’ve no regrets. I love it here.”