Welcome to the Ten-Percent information page for Portsmouth. If you would like to contact us for further information about posts, please either view our vacancy database, or email us at cv@tenpercent.co.uk You can discuss any issues arising from legal careers or jobs on our confidential Legal Careers Forum.

Portsmouth

You may not know this, but Portsmouth is the UK's only island city, surrounded by water.  Obviously we know about its importance in the naval world, but if you are deciding whether you would want to live and work here, then it’s other information you will need. 

Question: Do you like shopping?

If yes, proceed to paragraph A. If no, proceed to paragraph B.

 A.  The shopping is good with choice ranging from the usual British high street to independent outlets.  The high street stores include the more up market chains, such as Karen Millen, Paul Smith, Gieves and Hawkes, LK Bennett and Molton Brown.  Southsea has some more unusual stores that are more conducive to browsing.  There’s an excellent website on http://www.albertroad.insouthsea.co.uk telling you all about the individual shops.

 B.  We don’t want to waste good quality shopping info on shopping haters!  A lot of the events going on in Portsmouth are linked to the sea and its history there.  There are plenty of sports and leisure facilities, and sports teams if a bit of healthy competition is more your style.  For nightlife, there are some of the more well known venues, such as Tiger Tiger and Jongleurs, so you don’t have to be an underage binge drinker to fit in.  For local bands and more on the arts scene have a look at http://www.inportsmouth.co.uk/community/whatson 

 Now we’ll regroup for eating out, because everyone likes that.  There’s a good choice of restaurants in Portsmouth.  Not only have you got Loch Fyne, Pizza Express and other reliable chains, but there’s some good bistros and independents too. 

Portsmouth is also home to the tallest public viewing tower in the UK.  Spinnaker Tower is a concrete, steel and composite structure that rises 170m from the sea adjacent to Gunwharf Quays. It has three tourist viewing platforms at heights of 100, 105 and 110m with views over Portsmouth harbour and beyond.

Housing

 Renting in the area is not bad; for about £500 a month you can get yourself a respectable flat.  To buy something, about £120k will get you a terraced property and you can still buy one bedroomed flats for less than £100k. 

Going up to the £200k mark, you’ll get a semi, either modern or traditional, or a stylish two bed apartment with a seaview.  Onwards and upwards, there is a range of property at the higher end. 

Although there are some pleasant properties for sale on the Isle of Wight, the cost of the ferry crossing would make commuting from there prohibitive.

It must be so great to be able to go to the beach with the children at the weekend, or pop into the South Downs or the New Forest.  

Schools

The schools in Portsmouth are as follows:  

Their results and value added information are available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/education/04/school_tables/secondary_schools/html/851.stm.

Primary schools are on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/education/04/school_tables/primary_schools/html/851.stm

Hotels

If you are going to need accommodation for interviews, or to look around the area our favourite (based on its website!) has to be The Florence House Hotel (www.florencehousehotel.co.uk), a newly refurbished Edwardian house, which is now a boutique hotel.  Tariffs aren’t on the website yet though, so this may be with good reason!  www.tripadvisor.com gives other people’s reviews of Portsmouth hotels and most of the recommended ones are the chains, such as Holiday Inn, Marriott and Tulip.  The top recommended one is the Keppels Head, which looks lovely (www.keppelsheadhotel.co.uk) 

You can also visit the Ten Percent Hotel booking pages, operated by www.superbreak.com

The content of the careers centre is intended as guidance only. It has been written by Joanne Hirst on behalf of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment (www.ten-percent.co.uk). If you have any questions that we have not covered above, please contact us by calling 0845 644 3923, or emailing us at cv@tenpercent.co.uk