This is Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a successful and beautiful county. Its location, in terms of accessibility and environmental quality, the skills of its workforce, and its relative prosperity, all contribute to this.

The breadth of Oxfordshire's enterprise, opportunity and culture creates a unique and stimulating place in which to work.

Oxfordshire is home to over 630,000 residents and the County's historic market towns are placed within the attractive countryside of the Chilterns, the Cherwell Valley, and the Cotswolds.

The city of Oxford has worldwide recognition as a centre of excellence for learning and research, hosting both the internationally renowned, worldclass University of Oxford and, what league tables list as the best new university in the country, Oxford Brookes University.

Oxfordshire's highly qualified labour pool facilitates new business growth and development, and has created a shared entrepreneurial culture within the County. The breadth of enterprise, culture and opportunities in Oxfordshire creates a unique and stimulating place in which to work.

As part of the South East region, Oxfordshire shares the key challenges identified by the Regional Economic Strategy - global competitive forces, attaining growth, and achieving prosperity and sustainability. Oxfordshire has a well-balanced economy in terms of the distribution of employers and employees across different industrial sectors, without an over-reliance upon any one particular sector. The County remains a competitive economy in terms of new enterprise performance and survival rates, and its healthy small business sector remains the County's largest employer.

There are, however, issues - particularly lack of affordable housing, inadequate infrastructure, skills shortages and social exclusion - that need to be addressed if Oxfordshire’s competitive position is to be maximised. This Strategy has been devised to address these issues.

The economy must be flexible and adaptable to cope with changing conditions. According to the Office for National Statistics for Census data and long-term, sub-national population forecasts, the age structure of the Oxfordshire population is predicted to change significantly. Oxfordshire's population of women over 60 and men over 65 is projected to increase by about 24% by 2016 and over 50% by 2026. Over the same time period, to 2026, the population aged 0-19 is forecast to grow by only 0.3%.