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National Statistics on the Creative Industries

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A page collecting statistics from PEC’s research and other sources about the Creative Industries

In 2001 the Creative Industries were defined by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as those industries ‘which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property’ (UK Government 2021).

Currently DCMS uses a measurement that builds on this original definition but is based on the ‘creative intensity’ of an industry. A subsector (like Publishing or Architecture) is normally deemed creative when more than thirty percent of its workforce are doing what we call ‘creative occupations’ (e.g. they might be designers, producers or games developers). To be part of the Creative Industries, sectors also have to meet other threshold criteria (DCMS 2016).

The resulting definition of the Creative Industries comprises the following nine subsectors:

  • Advertising and marketing

  • Architecture

  • Crafts

  • Design and designer fashion

  • Film, TV, video, radio and photography

  • IT, software and computer services

  • Publishing

  • Museums, Galleries and Libraries

  • Music, performing and visual arts

The Creative Industries subsectors are defined by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes and partially overlap with the DCMS definitions of the cultural sector, the digital sector and the tourism sector (UK Government 2021).

Not all creative occupations are in the Creative Industries. For example, a marketing professional (a creative occupation) might work in the financial services (not part of the Creative Industries). It is sometimes more useful, therefore, to talk about the ‘Creative Economy’ which comprises the whole Creative Industries workforce (creative and non creative occupations), as well as those working in creative occupations in other sectors.

It is important to note that the Scottish Government, while building on the UK wide approach to defining the Creative Industries, takes a slightly different approach – detailed here.

Headline Statistics about the Creative Industries

Skills and Jobs

  • 72% of the creative workforce are highly qualified, i.e. hold a degree/ higher level qualification (Level 4 or higher) or equivalent compared with 45% for the whole economy in 2019 (DCMS 2019).

  • 83% of creative occupations are within ‘higher level occupations’, i.e. Managers, directors and senior officials; Professional occupations; and Associate professional and technical occupations, compared to 46% of the workforce across the UK (ibid.).

  • In the average city, each creative job adds at least 1.96 non-tradable jobs over a twenty-year period (Do Creative Industries generate multiplier effects? Evidence from UK cities 1997-2018, 2021).

  • Just over 29% of the creative workforce is freelance, compared to 15% across the UK (DCMS Sector Economic Estimates: Employment July 2020 – June 2021).

Education

  • 93% of 16-18 year olds say studying a creative subject impacts positively on their mental health and wellbeing. (Enhancing creative education, 2022)

  • Only 17% of the graduate population are creative graduates, but they represent 46% of graduates working in the Creative Industries (For love or money? Graduate motivations and the economic returns of creative higher education inside and outside the Creative Industries, 2020).

  • Creative graduates earn, on average, approximately £2,300 more a year when working in the Creative Industries compared with creative graduates working outside the Creative Industries (ibid.).

  • Non-creative graduates earn, on average, approximately £1,300 a year more when working in the Creative Industries compared with non-creative graduates working outside the Creative Industries (ibid.).

Geography

R&D and Innovation

  • Creative Research and Development (R&D) is crucial for innovation in the sector and makes up a larger proportion of the economy than might be expected, considering that R&D is typically associated with sectors like manufacturing or biotechnology. But both in the Creative Industries and other sectors, the UK under-invests in R&D compared to its peers, potentially restricting the development of improved products, services or processes and harming international competitiveness.

  • Based on the latest available measure of gross domestic product (GDP), which does not yet incorporate the new R&D methodology, total UK R&D expenditure represented 2.77% of GDP in 2022; this figure is not comparable with previously published estimates, which were last included in the 2019 release. The OECD average was 2.5% in the UK in 2019 (ONS 2021).

  • Specifically, business investment in R&D, which is spurred by public investment, was 1.97% of UK GDP in all economic sectors in 2022. This is higher than the OECD average business investment in R&D of 1.5% in 2019. Please note that the methodology for calculating this has changed and the numbers are not directly comparable. (Gross domestic expenditure on research and development, UK 2022.pdf, The Royal Society 2021).

  • Creative Industries R&D represented 11.5% of all business R&D in 2018, up from under 8% in 2009 (PEC 2022; ONS 2021). Even once IT, Software and Computer services (which make up a disproportionately large amount of the total creative R&D expenditure) are excluded from the totals, creative R&D still accounts for 4.3% of the whole economy’s Business Expenditure on Research and Development (BERD). (PEC 2022; ONS 2021).

International trade and exports

Class, diversity and socio-economic inequality

  • The proportion of people working across arts, culture and heritage who are White is 90%; higher than the general workforce figure at 85% according to Labour Force Survey data from 2023. (Audiences and workforces in arts, culture and heritage report, Creative PEC, 2024)

  • In terms of class inequality, 60% of arts, culture and heritage workers grew up in a household where the main income earner was in a ‘managerial or professional’ role; the equivalent figure for the whole workforce is 43%. (Audiences and workforces in arts, culture and heritage report, Creative PEC, 2024)

  • In ‘Film, TV, video, radio and photography’ just 8.4% of people identify as being from a working-class background. (Audiences and workforces in arts, culture and heritage report, Creative PEC, 2024)

  • Women comprise only 34% of ‘managers and directors in the creative industries.’ (Audiences and workforces in arts, culture and heritage report, Creative PEC, 2024)

  • 52% of the CIs workforces were from high socio-economic backgrounds, compared to 38% across all industries in 2020 (PEC 2021).

  • 263,000 additional working-class people would need to be employed in the CI sector to make it as socio-economically diverse as the rest of the economy (PEC 2021).

  • Class-based inequalities are inextricably linked with gender, racial, disability and spatial disparities, and earlier research by the PEC has shown how these factors interact to compound disadvantage.

  • In London, the odds of working in the Creative Industries as white and privileged person are one in five – double the chance of those from ethnic minority, working-class backgrounds also living in the Capital (PEC 2021).

  • Just five percent of those from working-class origins based outside of London and the South East work in a creative occupation, compared to 15% of those from privileged backgrounds living in these regions (PEC 2021).

  • The intersection of class and skills has a particularly profound effect, where those who are degree educated and from a privileged background are 6.5 times more likely to secure a creative role than those from lower socio-economic backgrounds that are qualified only to GCSE-level or below (PEC 2021).

 

Thumbnail Photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash

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