How is the Preston economy performing, and what are the key policy issues facing the city?
This factsheet compares Portsmouth to the five most similar European cities in size and industrial structure. These are: Malmö (Sweden), Strasbourg (France), Bochum (Germany), Orléans (France), Aix-en-Provence (France)
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 Preston to its European counterparts on variables such as skills, employment and productivity.
Preston is a medium sized city with a slightly large public services sector and a similar sized private services sector.
Preston performs well on jobs and employment, but less well across other indicators against its group.