Manchester has the No10 of the North – now what about us?’ That’s the question being asked of Andy Burnham in Britain’s other cities.

They want to know what his promise of shifting power out of Westminster and promoting ‘good growth in every postcode’ means for them in practice.

And in few places is the call to deliver on devolution louder than Birmingham. 

The West Midlands, cradle of the industrial revolution, aspires to be a powerhouse in some of the big sectors of 21st century commerce: Defence; health; technology; sports; entertainment.

Metro mayors will soon be allowed to keep a bigger share of business rates and – for the first time – income tax to decide how the money is spent.

A recent study from Harvard and King’s College London found that £70billion would be added to annual output if Birmingham and other cities outside of London enjoyed the same devolution benefits as their European peers.

But if it is to re-industrialise, Britain’s second city must promote itself better to reap the ‘phenomenal’ prize on offer, says West Midlands mayor Richard Parker.

Images of litter-strewn streets have not helped. The bin workers’ strike, now in its 18th month, was caused by public service cuts to plug an alleged £600million hole in the local authority pension fund.

Al Carns, Labour MP for Selly Oak, says Birmingham must make more noise, adding: ‘Humility has been our problem. We need to puff ourselves up a bit.’

From windows in Birmingham town hall, in the Colmore business district, you see the towers occupied by financial giants Goldman Sachs and HSBC. 

Jaguar Land Rover down the road in Solihull is another large local employer.

But the fight is on to attract even more strategically important firms by persuading them that ‘it’s a lot cheaper to do business here’ than in London, as Parker puts it.

He says: ‘We have a young population – a third are under 25. We are a petri dish of talent with our 12 universities.’

Among those already drawn to Birmingham is the US billionaire Tom Wagner, who owns Birmingham City football club.

Wagner is behind the £4billion Sports Quarter development on a brownfield site in the east of the city. This project will include a stadium, or ‘globally recognised colosseum’, where events such as concerts will also be staged.

Wagner has said that Parker and the West Midlands Growth Company ‘made it easy for him’ to invest in the city.

Neil Rami, the West Midlands Growth Company boss, says the clue to attracting inward investment for firms is ‘providing the softest landing’.

Another project on the £11billion regeneration zone is Digbeth Studios. This busy production hub for film and TV is the brainchild of Steven Knight, creator of the hit TV series Peaky Blinders, starring Cillian Murphy and Sophie Rundle, which features the Brummy Shelby crime gang of the 1920s. Its sequel will be shot at the complex.

Gang leader Thomas Shelby’s famous line that ‘when you plan something well, there’s no need to rush’ is certainly apt. Unlike Manchester, Birmingham is still getting the delayed HS2 high-speed rail link from London, although the train line won’t be up and running before 2036 at the earliest.

Health and life sciences is another sector targeted for growth as Birmingham, with its five NHS trust hospitals, seeks to exploit its proud engineering heritage.

Jeff Bousfield, CEO of Nonacus said: 'Birmingham has so much going for it - a great place to base our HQ from where we are rolling out our home bladder cancer testing services in several NHS Trusts across the country.

'The life sciences scene in Birmingham is thriving, with fantastic lab space and talented staff, allowing us to test for bladder cancer faster and reduce waiting lists'.

The city sees itself as the obvious choice for pharmaceutical companies outside the ‘Golden Triangle’ research cluster of London, Oxford and Cambridge. 

Rami says: ‘Our labour costs are 60 per cent of those in the Golden Triangle, and our housing costs are 40 per cent lower.’

The Birmingham University-run Health Innovation Campus in Edgbaston, which opened last year, underlines the city’s readiness to meet the research demands of the pharmaceutical and allied sectors.

In its laboratories, there is space for every type of ‘research with a purpose’ as Adam Tickell, Birmingham University’s vice-chancellor, puts it.

Tickell is proud of his institution’s ‘practical’ tradition that makes job-seeking easier for alumni. Its graduates are among the world’s most employable – the city’s ethnic mix means 90 languages are spoken here – and many stay on in the city after their degrees.

This is a theme in tune with Burnham’s proposal to enhance education’s vocational role in tackling the crisis of Neets – young people not in employment, education or training. The Prime Minister may call his devolution revolution ‘Manchesterism’.

However, if Andy Burnham is serious about delivering his mission, other cities such as Birmingham must not miss out.