Fewer than three in 10 Portsmouth businesses started in 2019 still trading, among lowest rates in the South East

Portsmouth's five-year business survival rate of 29.9% is the second lowest of 65 council areas in the South East, though newer firms are doing better.

Just 29.9 per cent of businesses started in Portsmouth in 2019 were still trading five years later, one of the lowest rates in the South East, official figures show.

Office for National Statistics data shows 1,205 businesses were born in the city in 2019. By 2024, 360 of them were still active.

Portsmouth's rate is the second lowest of 65 South East council areas with comparable figures, behind only Test Valley, and the 20th lowest of 374 UK council areas. In the Hampshire County Council area, 40.0 per cent of 2019 starts survived, and across the South East, 40.2 per cent.

Portsmouth's neighbours all kept a bigger share of their 2019 starts:

Five-year survival rate, businesses started in 2019 (still active in 2024)

Portsmouth 29.9%

Gosport 38.9%

Havant 42.0%

Fareham 43.7%

East Hampshire 44.6%

Winchester 50.6%

South East 40.2%

UK average 38.4%

Across the UK, 139,845 of the 363,825 businesses born in 2019 were still active in 2024, a five-year survival rate of 38.4 per cent. The South West had the highest regional rate, at 43.5 per cent, and the West Midlands the lowest, at 30.6 per cent.

There are signs of improvement. Of businesses born in Portsmouth in 2021, 54.3 per cent were still trading three years later, up from 46.9 per cent of 2019 starts that survived three years, and slightly above the UK's 53.5 per cent.

The figures come ahead of Small Business Saturday on 5 December, the annual campaign that encourages people to shop with independent and local businesses.

The analysis was carried out by Magic PR, a UK communications company, which ranked 374 council areas using the ONS figures. Areas the ONS flags for large numbers of businesses registered at one postcode were left out.

M. Hussain, founder of Magic PR, said: "Keeping a new business going for five years is hard anywhere, but these figures show it is much harder in some places than others. Portsmouth's 2019 starts struggled, though it is encouraging that more recent businesses in the city are surviving at about the national rate. Small Business Saturday is a good reminder that what we spend locally in the run-up to Christmas can decide whether a business sees another year."

The full rankings for every council area and the method are on Magic PR's research page.

Method and caveats: ONS Business Demography 2024 (tables 5.1a and 5.1c), 2019 council boundaries. Survival rate is businesses born in 2019 still active in 2024, divided by 2019 births. Counts are rounded to the nearest five, so small-area rates need care. The 2019 starts traded through the pandemic.