About Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is home to approximately 723,000 residents. It is one of the most rural counties in England and includes parts of three Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty: the Cotswolds to the north west, the North Wessex Downs to the south, and the Chilterns to the south east. Alongside picturesque villages and hamlets, the county has a range of vibrant market towns, such as Abingdon, Henley, Witney and Woodstock, together with the large town of Banbury and the historic city of Oxford.

Oxfordshire boasts a wealth of cultural and heritage sites, from the Ashmolean Museum to Blenheim Palace, while as a centre of excellence for learning and research, it has earned global recognition. Alongside the world-renowned University of Oxford, and one of the best new universities in the country Oxford Brookes University, the county has a range of internationally regarded research and development institutions, including the new Synchrotron light source, Diamond.

The Oxfordshire economy generates £21.9bn of output per year from 400,000 jobs and more than 30,000 businesses. It is defined by a concentration of knowledge-intensive clusters and high-tech firms, with global strengths in the life sciences, physics, engineering, creative and digital, electronics, telecoms and computing enterprises. These strengths define the county’s knowledge-based economy and help make the county one of only three net contributors to the UK Exchequer.