IT sector misses out as business failures fall

Insolvency rate among IT firms remains at 0.06 per cent despite significant drop in failures in wider market

Closed for ever: Some 68 IT firms hit the wall in June

The number of IT businesses hitting the wall showed no improvement in June, despite a 13 per cent drop in overall UK business insolvencies.

According to data from Experian, 68 IT businesses went under last month, which showed no change on June 2009.

Some 1,771 UK firms failed overall in June, compared with 2,044 a year earlier. The overall financial strength score of UK businesses also improved from 80.66 to 80.83 year on year.

Rolf Hickman, managing director of Experian company pH Group said that, although the data showed the market was stabilising, it also pointed to a growing divide between the north of the country and the south.

At 0.14 per cent, the North East suffered the highest insolvency rate, followed by Yorkshire (0.12 per cent). In contrast, the South West’s rate was just 0.07 while Greater London’s rate stood at 0.08 per cent.

“Businesses in the north of England seem to be faring slightly worse than their southern counterparts across all industry sectors,” said Hickman.

Scotland was the only region of the UK to see an increase in its insolvency rate, up to 0.08 per cent from 0.06 per cent in June 2009 following 98 failures during the month.

At 0.06 per cent, the insolvency rate of IT firms remained relatively low but did not improve on last year. The financial strength score of firms in the sector improved slightly from 82.28 to 83.33.