The interplay between place, individuals, and creativity has in recent years received much attention. National differences of how capitalism is organised can be drawn into this discussion, but are seldom examined systematically. By investigating data from the UK as a Liberal Market Economy (LME) and Sweden as a Coordinated Market Economy (CME), we develop and test a set of hypotheses to analyse the role of ‘varieties of capitalism’ in relation to the location dynamics of the creative class. Results confirm the effect of the CME in flattening the distribution of the creative class, tempered by the Swedish urban hierarchy which acts to concentrate it in a smaller number of (larger) locations. Through combining both contextual and spatial elements, this approach generates new insights into observed variations between CME and LME around mobility, adjustment, and quality of place, but also serves to highlight where other additional factors may be influential.