Jobs, pay and business survival
Stable · Medium attention
Jobs in Portsmouth pay more than residents earn, and fewer new businesses survive five years than across England.
What Portsmouth residents earn, against what jobs in the city pay. Portsmouth residents (not workplaces).
Source: ONS ASHE · resident median full-time pay, 2025
Checked 23 September 2026
| Year | Residents | Jobs here | England |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | £26,528 | £28,186 | £27,838 |
| 2016 | £25,861 | £28,660 | £28,500 |
| 2017 | £26,655 | £28,942 | £29,085 |
| 2018 | £27,402 | £29,576 | £29,849 |
| 2019 | £28,569 | £30,996 | £30,692 |
| 2020 | £27,197 | £32,877 | £31,780 |
| 2021 | £29,215 | £31,851 | £31,445 |
| 2022 | £32,343 | £34,136 | £33,279 |
| 2023 | £32,638 | £35,073 | £35,194 |
| 2024 | £35,112 | £38,613 | £37,636 |
| 2025 | £36,022 | £38,815 | £39,243 |
Source: ONS Business demography
Source: ONS BRES
| Year | Portsmouth | England |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 21.2% | 16.7% |
| 2018 | 22.2% | 16.3% |
| 2020 | 23.5% | 16.8% |
| 2022 | 24% | 16.9% |
| 2023 | 25.5% | 17.6% |
| 2024 | 26.9% | 17.9% |
About the pay figures
ASHE figures carry a coefficient of variation rather than a confidence interval. Portsmouth exceeds the 10% "unreliable" threshold on annual pay in 2010, 2020 and 2022, so those points should not carry weight on their own. 2025 is provisional.
What isn't published
Not published: ONS has not accredited Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey estimates as official statistics since October 2023, so recent local employment and inactivity rates carry wide margins and should not be read as precise.
Not published: No published explanation for the business survival gap, or for why it opens at year three rather than year one.
Not published: Business births and deaths are only published from 2019 in the current edition; earlier years require archived releases.
Not published: Long-term sickness inactivity for Portsmouth carries margins of ±8 to ±12 percentage points, so local year-on-year movement is not interpretable.
Overview checked 26 August 2026. Additional figures have their own dates in the evidence explorer. Further context on UK Stat Pack.