Portsmouth's tech sector: the figures and where to meet

Portsmouth's identity is bound up with the sea and defence: the city council's own skills strategy describes it as "home to HM Naval Base Portsmouth", playing "a central role in UK defence". But the city also has a digital sector of real size, a university with nationally certified cyber security teaching, and a small set of regular events where people in tech, marketing and start-ups meet. This piece looks at what the official numbers say, what the city council says about itself, and what that means if you want to meet people in the sector.

A note on the figures: the ONS publishes Portsmouth as its own area, separate from Hampshire and Southampton, so the numbers below are for the city only.

How big the sector is

The ONS's Business Register and Employment Survey, in its provisional 2024 results published on 28 October 2025, counted:

• 4,500 employees in information and communication in Portsmouth, 4.3% of the city's 104,000 employees. Across Great Britain the share was 4.5%.
• 3,000 employees in computer programming, consultancy and related activities, the core of what most people mean by "tech". That is about 2.9% of employees in the city, slightly above Great Britain's 2.7%.
• For comparison, Southampton had 3,500 employees in information and communication, 3.1% of its total.

The count of businesses is less flattering. UK Business Counts for March 2026, published on 24 September 2026, lists 380 information and communication enterprises in Portsmouth, 4.9% of the city's 7,720 businesses. Across the South East the share is about 7.9%. Of Portsmouth's 380, 275 are in computer programming and consultancy.

In other words, Portsmouth's tech employment holds its own nationally, but it has fewer tech businesses for its size than the rest of the South East.

What has changed

The official figures do not show the sector growing:

• Information and communication employment in Portsmouth was 4,500 in 2019 and 4,500 in 2024, on the ONS's rounded figures.
• The number of information and communication enterprises fell from 445 in March 2021 to 380 in March 2026.

Neither survey explains why, and we have not guessed. What the figures support is a steady sector, not a fast-growing one.

What the city says about itself

Portsmouth City Council's Skills and Labour Market Strategy 2026 to 2030, published in March 2026, lists digital technologies among the city's high-growth sectors alongside advanced manufacturing, clean energy, the creative industries, defence and life sciences. It says the city "supports SMEs in software, cybersecurity, and digital services", and that Portsmouth's space industry employs "around 1,000 highly skilled professionals" working on satellite technology and secure communications.

The same strategy is candid about the main weakness. It describes graduate retention as "a key area of improvement", "historically low at approximately 19%", and says the city needs stronger links between the University of Portsmouth and local employers.

The university and the cyber link

The University of Portsmouth's BSc Cyber Security and Forensic Computing is on the National Cyber Security Centre's list of certified degrees, fully certified until 30 September 2031, and its distance-learning MSc in Cybercrime is provisionally certified. Along the coast, the University of Southampton is one of the universities the NCSC has recognised as an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Education, at Gold level.

Hampshire County Council's digital sector page also names the University of Portsmouth's Centre for Creative and Immersive eXtended Reality (CCIXR) as one of the county's centres of excellence in creative and immersive technology.

For networking, the point is simple. A university with certified cyber teaching and a stated aim to tie graduates to local employers means students and staff are worth meeting, and events that bring them into the room with businesses are the ones to look for.

Where Portsmouth's tech people meet

Portsmouth's listings on hampshire.events are a mix of tech-specific evenings and broader business events where tech and digital people turn up:

• Marketing and digital. The Marketing Meetup runs evenings in Portsmouth at Ocean House, which its listing notes was previously Technopole, on Kingston Crescent. See The Marketing Meetup.
• Starting up. Shaping Portsmouth lists sessions from the Portsmouth Business Support Service, including an evening for people with a business idea and a half-day on personal branding and LinkedIn.
• Advice. The Solent Business Growth Service runs one-to-one clinics in Portsmouth that cover technology and AI as well as skills, funding and marketing.
• Weekly networking. Portsmouth Business Exchange meets on Wednesday mornings for small business owners, without referral targets or a hard sell.
• Across the water in Southampton. Hampshire AI runs evening talks at Southampton Science Park, the latest on cyber security in the age of AI, and Women in Tech Hampshire holds panel evenings.

What this means if you're going to events

A few things make a tech event in Portsmouth more useful:

• Say what you build or need. "I'm a developer" is a weaker opener than "I build booking systems for small hotels" or "we need someone who knows AWS".
• Go to the mixed rooms too. With fewer tech businesses than the regional average, many of Portsmouth's likely customers and partners are at general business events, not tech ones.
• Meet the university. If you hire, the city's own strategy says graduate links are the gap. Ask organisers whether students or staff attend, and bring a clear line on what roles you might have.
• Look along the coast. Some of the tech-specific talks are in Southampton, so it is worth treating the Solent as one patch when you plan.

The listings below are as listed on hampshire.events; check details with each organiser before you go. For more, see everything on in Portsmouth, Portsmouth and the south coast and Southampton, the county's talks and after-work events, or this week.

Correction: an earlier version of this article said the sector was growing and that graduates were increasingly choosing to stay. The figures and the city's strategy do not support either, so both have been removed.