The Solent's digital businesses: what the numbers say

People often describe the stretch of coast round the Solent as a digital cluster. It is worth checking that against the official figures before repeating it, because the numbers tell a more mixed and more useful story.

The Office for National Statistics groups software, telecoms, publishing, broadcasting and IT services together as "information and communication". It is the closest official measure of what most people mean by the digital or tech sector. Two sources count it locally: UK Business Counts, which counts registered businesses, and the Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES), which counts jobs.

How many digital businesses are there

In March 2026, UK Business Counts recorded these information and communication businesses (VAT or PAYE registered, counted where the business is based):

• Southampton: 390
• Portsmouth: 355
• Eastleigh: 365
• Fareham: 310
• Havant: 255
• Gosport: 90
• Winchester: 585
• Basingstoke and Deane: 760

Across the Hampshire County Council area, which leaves out the two cities, the count was 4,585.

The same dataset shows the count falling over five years. In 2021 Southampton had 445 and Portsmouth 415, and the Hampshire County Council area had 5,840. That is a drop of more than a fifth across the county. The ONS figures do not say why, and a count of registered businesses does not tell you whether the work moved, merged or stopped, so we would not read too much into it. It does mean "a growing cluster" is not something these figures show.

For context, the ONS counted 2.79 million VAT or PAYE businesses in the UK in March 2026, 1.9% more than a year earlier, with every UK region up.

Where the digital jobs are

Business counts treat a one-person consultancy the same as a large employer, so jobs are the better measure of scale. The 2024 BRES figures, published in October 2025, show information and communication employment as a share of all employment in each area:

• Southampton: 3,500 jobs, 3.0%
• Portsmouth: 4,500 jobs, 4.3%
• Eastleigh: 2,250 jobs, 3.4%
• Fareham: 2,500 jobs, 5.0%
• England: 4.7%
• South East: 5.5%
• Hampshire County Council area: 36,000 jobs, 5.7%

The highest shares in Hampshire are further north. Rushmoor, which includes Farnborough, had 9,000 information and communication jobs, 17.3% of its employment. Basingstoke and Deane had 6,000 (6.9%) and Winchester 6,000 (6.1%).

The ONS rounds the open BRES figures, so small differences between places are not meaningful. The broad picture is: on these measures, Southampton and Portsmouth have a smaller digital share of their jobs than England as a whole, and the county's tech employment leans north.

What the Solent does have

None of that means there is nothing happening on the coast. It means the strengths are more specific than "tech" in general.

The University of Southampton Science Park at Chilworth says it is set across 72 acres and houses over 90 companies, about 15% of which came from the university. Its Axis Conference Centre and the Future Towns Innovation Hub host several of the specialist meet-ups in our listings. In Portsmouth, Ocean House, the former Technopole, hosts The Marketing Meetup, and Southampton's Barclays Eagle Lab hosts Things Connected, a group for people working with connected devices and sensors.

The listed organisers show where the active communities are:

• Hampshire AI runs evening talks on artificial intelligence, most recently on cyber security.
• Women in Tech Hampshire runs talks and discussion evenings.
• Space South Central runs Orbit, a monthly networking meeting for the UK space sector.
• Venturefest South runs an innovation festival for founders, investors, researchers and larger firms.

These are focused groups rather than general networking. That suits the numbers: when a sector is spread thinly across many towns, the people in it are less likely to meet by chance, so a regular topic-led meet-up matters more.

Why the meet-ups matter more than the label

There is good evidence that loose connections are where new opportunities come from. A 2022 study in Science used experiments on LinkedIn's connection suggestions, covering more than 20 million people over five years. It found that moderately weak ties, people you know a little, did the most for job moves, and that weak ties helped most in more digital industries. That was job mobility on one platform, not business deals in Hampshire, but it fits what a specialist evening offers: a room of people in your field who you would not otherwise meet.

What this means if you're going to events

• Go by topic, not by sector label. A talk on AI security or connected sensors will put you next to people with the same problems. A general "tech networking" night is rarer here.
• Look north as well as along the coast. On the jobs figures, Basingstoke, Farnborough and Winchester have more digital work than the Solent cities, and their events are an hour or less away.
• Check the room before you go. Several of these meet-ups are evening talks with networking afterwards, so the conversation happens at the end. The listing says how each one runs.
• Use the science park buildings as a signal. If an event is at Chilworth or a lab, it is usually built round a subject, and the people there tend to work in it.

Find the next one

The current dates are in the listings below. For more, see talks and after work events, the Southampton and Portsmouth town pages, or the whole Southampton and the Solent area.