THE Southampton area’s highly skilled workers will protect the city from the worst of the recession and help it recover more quickly, experts predict today.

A study of the economic performance of the UK’s largest towns and cities says Southampton is better placed than many other communities to ride out job losses and business closures over the coming months.

It finds that Southampton is a “stronger” city economy than others, with a highly qualified workforce and a significant number of jobs in so-called “knowledge industries”, like science and research, which require university-level qualifications.

It means that while the city will not be immune to job losses during the downturn, it is likely to be less exposed than other parts of the country and better placed to improve.

The Centre for Cities, the think tank behind the study, which is published today, awards Southampton a “green” in a traffic light ranking system based on an analysis of the number of qualifications residents have, the proportion of residents claiming benefits and the employment rate in 64 cities and towns.

By contrast, places given a red light ranking, which are likely to be hardest hit by the recession, are mainly those outside the south east such as Belfast, Liverpool, and Hull, which suffer from some of the highest unemployment rates, have large numbers without qualifications and have experienced big increases in the number of Jobseeker's Allowance claim-ants.

A spokesman for the Centre for Cities said: “As far as Southampton goes on the traffic lights it’s lower green. Not badly off for qualifications and about middle for its increase in JSA claimants, but Southampton has a high concentration of knowledge intensive industries. This will help the city during the recession as these firms stand a better chance.”

Dermot Finch, director of the Centre for Cities, said: “UK cities will be hit harder than they think by this recession. Nearly all say they are well-placed to weather the storm – but they can't all be right.

The recession will hit cities in different ways – and some will be hit worse than others.

“Cities will lead us out of recession – but they can't just rely on action from Whitehall.

“Each needs its own action plan, to keep jobs and retrain workers – and more powers over economic development.”