Portsmouth is a historic maritime city recognised as a global centre for marine, aerospace, defence, creative and digital industries. We are ambitious and forward-thinking with a multibillion-pound transformation programme underway positioning the city as a top performer for innovation, technology and enterprise.

Portsmouth has a population of 215,000, the city is home to 8,250 businesses including Airbus Defence and Space, BAE Systems, IBM and Pall Europe. The city is also home to the University of Portsmouth which excels in research areas for cosmology, cyber security, forensics and plastics.

Portsmouth was awarded most entrepreneurial city in the UK in 2020. Last year 1,970 new firms were established, and 4,000 new jobs created. Portsmouth is a UK top 25 GVA city with a GVA of £6.2bn and GVA-per-filled-job of £46,936 which places it in Europe’s top 20 cities. GVA grew by 3.6% last year – the fastest rate for any city in the south of the UK.