The was a total of 938 company administrations in the quarter as well as 3,560 compulsory liquidations and creditor's voluntary liquidations – an increase of 15% on the previous year.

Nicholas Mockett of Europa Partners said: "I am not surprised to see the number of administrations soaring. We have some serious headwinds in the economy at the moment and from a consumer's perspective the list of woes seems to be getting longer and longer.

"For the print industry this is likely to be pretty bad news and we should expect more printers to slip into administration.

"Struggling corporates tend to cut advertising spend first – this implies lower paginations in magazines and less mass-market commercial printing."

However, Mike Jervis, partner in the business recovery services practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, said that despite the accompanying rise in corporate insolvencies, insolvency is no longer the death knell it once was.

"Businesses are seeing that insolvency techniques can be used as a mechanism to salvage and revitalise ailing operations. Used in the right circumstances, insolvency procedures including pre-packaged administrations can help to rescue a company, saving jobs, and preserving value for the company and continuity for suppliers," he said.