This factsheet shows how Bournemouth compares to the five most similar European cities in size and industrial structure. These are: Thessaloniki (Greece), Szczecin (Poland), Strasbourg (France), Antwerp (Belgium) and Kaunas (Lithuania).

Comparing cities in this way helps us to understand more about how well UK cities are competing on an international scale because it groups cities with similar industrial structures, rather than on their resulting economic performance. The factsheet also compares the relative strengths and weaknesses of Bournemouth to its European counterparts on variables such as skills, employment and productivity.

City group characteristics

The dominant sector in this group of medium-sized cities is private services with slightly smaller public and business service sectors.

Population

Industrial structure

Key

• Manufacturing, mining and utilities 2011
• Business services 2011
• Public services 2011
• Other private services 2011
• Other sectors 2011

Overall economic performance

Bournemouth ranks in the middle on most indicators and similarly ranks in the middle of the full set of cities. It does however have the highest employment rate in its group, but tends to rank slightly lower on skills.