Peterborough has the highest rate of unemployment in Cambridgeshire, figures that “reiterate the north/south divide” in the county show.

A skills and employment profile for each part of the region has been drawn up on behalf of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) which shows that Peterborough has the highest unemployment rate and among the lowest proportion of residents with formal qualifications. 

The regional profiles will “inform strategy, policy, and strategic commissioning”, a CPCA report says, noting that the data contained within them “reiterates the north/south divide, with the lower levels of skill in Peterborough and Fenland”. 

It continues that Fenland has the “lowest qualified population of Cambridgeshire residents” compared to both regional and national averages, while Peterborough’s figures are also “much lower” than average. 

Huntingdonshire and East Cambridgeshire have roughly average levels of residents with qualifications, the report says, while Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire have the most qualified residents. 

In Peterborough, 22 per cent of residents have no qualifications compared to 17 per cent across the region and 18 per cent nationally, the report says. 

Its unemployment rate (4.8%) is also higher than the rest of Cambridgeshire (2.9%) and England (3.7%). 

The city’s median wage is also some 12 per cent lower than the regional average.

Last year, it was £586.20 per week, while the regional average was £664.40. 

Trading is Peterborough’s largest employment sector, its profile says; 20 per cent of those employed in the city work in retail or wholesale sales or repair cars or motorbikes.

Health and social work is the second largest sector, but also the sector with the highest number of vacancies. Manufacturing, transport and storage, education and construction are the next largest sectors in terms of employment. 

At a CPCA meeting at which the profiles were discussed, it was suggested that Cambridge doesn’t need much support when it comes to skills and employment while Peterborough and Fenland need the most. 

Skills chair Cllr Lucy Nethsingha (Newnham, Liberal Democrats) said that the CPCA looks at areas at a post code level and there are small pockets of Cambridge which are in greater need of support. 

“Although you can get that district picture, it doesn’t necessarily pick up on the granularity of that district,” she said of the reports, while acknowledging that there is an overall disparity.

The CPCA report also highlights the ways in which it has supported skills and education in the area already, such as by helping fund Peterborough’s new university and community centres in Fenland.