Jobs in Portsmouth | Pictures of Portsmouth

For over 800 years Portsmouth has been home to the Royal Navy, its natural strategic advantages made it the obvious location from which to patrol the English Channel from the threat of invasion and to create an international trading route. But Portsmouth – or Pompey as it is commonly referred – offers more than a naval history of Britain and is fast becoming a cosmopolitan business, leisure and residential location.

Then and now
Unlike most port towns and cities throughout the rest of the UK that flourished as a result of their commercial prospects such as Liverpool or Bristol, Portsmouth was identified by Henry VII for its tactical potential in defending England from constant French and Spanish invasion. And in 1495 Henry established the world’s first dry dock – which is still in use today - and transformed Portsmouth into a royal dock.

Since then, Portsmouth’s role in British history has grown in importance. Synonymous with numerous famous ships, including HMS Victory and the Mary Rose, Portsmouth’s dockyard at its height was the largest industrial site on the world.

Due to its military importance, the city was bombed extensively during the Second World War and much of the buildings that exist today have been constructed throughout the post-war era.

Now no longer just a dockyard city, Portsmouth has diversified into a strong commercial, leisure and industrial centre that has seen employment at a thirty-year high with over 100,000 people working in the city. And today, the city is undergoing another major transformation with over a billion pounds being injected into the city’s infrastructure, amenities and new commercial developments making Portsmouth’s economy is the fourth largest in the South East.

Portsmouth may have declined as naval base in recent years but it still remains a major dockyard and base for the Royal Navy. Indeed, the dockyard has created a strong marine industry consisting of defence, transport, recreational and fishing sectors. Combined, this sector employs over 20,000 people within the city region and over 35,000 throughout the wider Hampshire region in an industry worth more than £680m per year.

Arguably the biggest marine employer in Portsmouth is BAE Systems-VT Shipbuilding – formed following a £1bn merger in 2007. The company has won a Ministry of Defence contract worth £3.1bn to build two new Royal Navy aircraft carriers over the next few year, creating 3,000 new jobs in Portsmouth.

Other key players within the marine sector based in Portsmouth, include Brittany Ferries, McMurdo, Premier Marinas, QinetiQ, Raymarine, Rolls-Royce, Sunsail Wightlink.

And a solid marine industry is typically complimented by a strong aerospace sector. EADS Astrim - Europe’s second biggest arms manufacturer - is the biggest aerospace employer in the city employing over 1,000 people and has enjoyed a fifty-year relationship with Portsmouth. In 2005 Inmarsat 4, the worlds largest and most sophisticated commercial communications satellite was designed and tested here and successfully launched from a sea-launch platform on the equator. H+S Aviation and Portsmouth Aviation are all based here.

Against this backdrop is a thriving information and communications technology industry (ICT). Home to such leading edge companies such as IBM (UK), Pall Europe, Raymarine and McLaren Composites – the production unit for the McLaren F1 car – Portsmouth has a significantly higher percentage of its total workforce in the high tech sector than the national average, employing 18,000 people in 6,000 businesses.

The city’s retail sector is also enjoying a period of growth. Thanks to a buoyant local economy and improved transport links since the late 1990s, Portsmouth’s retail sector has been a willing beneficiary. More than £850m has been invested in a number of retail, leisure and residential developments.

And much of this investment is thanks to the City Council’s determination to position Portsmouth as a leading leisure, commercial and venture opportunity. Indeed, as many as 1 in 4 of the city’s workers are employed by the public sector in some capacity.

However, what made Portsmouth famous is its unrivalled maritime history and this has stimulated a thriving tourist industry in the city worth over £350m a year. With over 650,000 staying visits and 3.5m day visitors, the tourism sector provides jobs for over 7,000 people.

Key business districts
Along with the county town Winchester, Portsmouth has the highest job density in Hampshire and by default, has the highest level of commuting to the city. But Portsmouth’s key business districts are scattered throughout the so-called Harbour area that incorporates neighbouring Fareham and Gosport.

Fareham has been described as one of the four most profitable places to do business in the UK. With a high concentration of offices and a significant number of large industrial companies based there, Fareham has earned it the epithet ‘Virtual London’.

Gosport, for its part, is synonymous with the defence, electronics, manufacturing and logistics industries with the Ministry of Defence, Tyco Healthcare, Qinetiq Haslar, Wyeth Research and Huhtamaki being by far the largest employers providing over 26,000 jobs in the area.

If you're thinking of moving to the area, take a look at some of the current property available to buy or let in Portsmouth.

Take a closer look
A picture is worth a thousand words. You can see some images from in and around Portsmouth below.

Looking for local vacancies? See all current jobs in Portsmouth or find out more information on the local area.