The percentage of the sector's business population that failed last year was 1.71%, compared with 2.69% in 2009. Overall, the annual rate of business insolvencies in 2010 across the UK fell 18%, the first fall in two years.

Some 1.04% of UK businesses failed in 2010, compared with 1.25% in 2009. The total number of insolvencies decreased by 18% from 24,209 to 19,946 in 2010.

Max Firth, managing director of Experian PH, said 2010 was "a period of relative stability for business insolvencies".

He added: "Insolvency trends in 2010 included a north-south divide, with firms in the south of England faring better, as well as a reversal of fortunes for the largest companies.

"Taken as a whole, those with more than 500 employees were not as resilient as they were in 2009."

He added that this demonstrated how quickly circumstances could change and how important it was for companies to monitor the performance of other businesses they dealt with to fully understand the impact they could have on them if they failed.

Yorkshire saw the highest rate of insolvencies throughout the year with an annual rate of 1.48%, while Scotland maintained the lowest rate of insolvencies in 2010.

Businesses in the plastics and rubber sector continued to have the highest annual insolvency rate in 2010 at 2.33%.

Andrew Brown, BPIF corporate affairs director, said its research had also revealed that the level of print industry insolvencies had fallen in the final quarter of 2010.

He said: "Begbies Traynor Red Flag Alert statistics reveal that 66 print and packaging companies became insolvent, down from 79 in the third quarter of 2010.

"Insolvencies in the fourth quarter are considerably less than the Q4 levels (105) recorded in each of the last two years and the lowest quarterly recording for two and a half years."

He added that this was a welcome reduction, but that it didn't mitigate the fact that around 10% of companies in the print industry had failed in the past three years.