Skills, Jobs, and Education
Introduction
The success of the creative industries can be attributed in large part to its workforce. It is the talents, capabilities and innovation of creative workers that have led the sector to make a significant contribution to the UK economy.
Creative PEC’s Skills, Jobs and Education research strand has sought to provide a blend of overarching strategic assessments across the creative economy, combined with a series of more focused deep dives, on topics such as the level of qualifications in the creative workforce or the skill requirements of creative employers.
The research in this theme looks at how our education and employment systems can be better designed to give people good-quality creative jobs and the skills they need to work in the creative industries.
Publications and Posts
Beyond growth: promoting inclusive development of creative clusters in the UK
The UK creative industries have been an economic powerhouse for over two decades, contributing £125 …
Improving young people’s access and progression in work in film, TV and games
Young people can face significant barriers to achieving their full potential in UK society. Disparit…
The Good Work Review
The Good Work Review is the first examination of job quality across the entire creative industries. …
Enhancing creative education
Creative education, which covers a wide array of subjects, from art and design, to media, dance and …
For love or money
Graduate motivations and the economic returns of creative higher education inside and outside the cr…
The creative digital skills revolution
A common finding in studies on the future of work is that employers will increasingly dema…
The migrant and skills needs of creative businesses in the UK
This report details the results of a survey of employers commissioned by the Creative Industries Cou…
Creativity and the future of skills
At a time when all jobs, whether in a coffee shop or a bank, can seemingly be described as creative,…
Authors’ Earnings in the UK
This policy briefing sets out areas for possible policy action, proposed by the researchers at CREAT…
How to design a creative higher education system that supports economic needs
As the UK emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government is faced with important policy decision…
Freelancers in the Creative Industries
One of the defining features of the creative industries is a high reliance on freelancers wheth…
Recovery and growth for creative freelancers: during and post-pandemic
Insights from our Industry Champions: in partnership with the Centre for Cultural Value At the end o…
Graduate motivations and the economic returns of creative higher education inside and outside the creative industries
Insights for policymakers The creative industries have experienced a glorious decade punctuated by a…
The value of creative higher and further education
Insights from our Industry Champions As part of the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (…
The role of the university in enhancing creative clusters
Universities are important for driving growth in their local creative industries. At the same time, …
Growth through skills: Lessons from the Thames Estuary Production Corridor
This discussion paper is a case study for how to drive growth within creative clusters through inves…
Creating value in place
The role, contribution and challenges of creative freelance work The creative industries are incredi…
The challenges facing freelancers in Scottish Film and TV
An analysis of 45 years of data from the Film Bang directory COVID-19’s effect on the creative indus…
A skills monitor for the Creative Industries
Workplace perspectives: skill needs, mismatches and development in the Creative Industries This Crea…
Skills, talent and diversity in the creative industries: critical issues and evidence gaps
Following a nine-month evidence synthesis and scoping exercise undertaken by the PEC team leading on…
Education and skills reforms essential for Government to achieve new Creative Industries ambitions, says new research
Embargoed: 11am Tuesday 8 July 2025 The creative industries are identified as a key sector for the U…
Highly skilled, international talent helps fuel UK creative industries growth, finds new report
Embargoed 9am (UK time) Tuesday 10 June 2025 As the dust settles on the UK government’s Immigration …
Increasing inequality in arts and culture revealed by new research
Embargoed 00.01 Wednesday 7 May 2025 A new report from the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence C…
New Government-backed survey will provide unprecedent insight on what drives growth in the creative industries
In further indication of the increasing importance the Government is putting on the creative industr…
UK Government’s growth ambitions threatened by widening creative industries skills gap
Embargoed 00.01 GMT Wednesday 12 February 2025 The rapid growth of the UK’s creative industries has …
Invest at scale in place-based approaches to unleash potential of ‘Foreign Direct Investment’ in UK’s creative industries says new research
Embargoed 00.01 Wednesday 20 November 2024 GMT With the UK Government’s forthcoming industrial strat…
With the right financial support creative industries could fuel the Government’s growth mission and help tackle persistent regional inequality
A new report published today by the AHRC-funded Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Crea…
Access to Finance: launch of new research project
New research is being undertaken by Creative UK in partnership with the Creative Industries Policy a…
New research points to a looming creative economy skills shortage across the UK
New report shows ‘severe’ decline in creative further education participation Embargoed 17 July 00.0…
Press Release: New research, including – once in a decade data – provides comprehensive overview of audiences and workforce across arts, culture and heritage.
Embargoed 00.01 Wednesday 15 May 2024 (BST) For the first time, census data has been used to provide…
Press Release: UK’s creative industries are an export success story
New report shows creative strength despite Brexit and Covid Embargoed 00.01 Wednesday 20 March 2024,…
Introducing the Creative PEC’s Research Fellows Network
By Professor Hasan Bakhshi, Director Creative PEC and Professor Giorgio Fazio, Director of Research …
How a placed-based employment programme is bringing creative workers back to Northern Ireland
The Department for Communities (DfC) recently awarded £4.7 million to Future Screens NI (F…
Class inequality in the Creative Industries is rooted in unequal access to arts and cultural education
There is an incoherence at the heart of government policy. While Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is…
Differences in creativity across Art and STEM: We are more alike than unalike
There is a rapidly growing body of international evidence(1) that skills such as creative probl…
What value Higher Education?
Education is an investment, and not just in a narrow financial sense. It is often life changing, and…
Wired! How 24/7 culture can put pressure on social media employees in the creative industries
What can professional networks, industry, funders and policy-makers do to ensure that digital worker…
Plugging the Data Gap: Freelance Workers in the Creative Industries
The Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the lack of available data on the self-employed and freelance wo…
How differently has the creative workforce fared under COVID-19?
Previous PEC research undertaken in partnership with the Centre for Cultural Value shows how the cre…
One size can’t fit all
On February 10th the House of Commons Treasury Committee published the latest report of their i…
Freelancers in the Dark
This blog is based on the Freelancer in the Dark Interim Report #1 which will be published…
What does the Skills for Jobs White Paper mean for Creative Industries?
A good start but the devil will be in the detail Last week, after much anticipation, and numerous le…
A jobs crisis in the cultural and creative industries
The impact of COVID-19 on the creative industries, and particularly on the cultural sector, has been…
Who is working second jobs in the creative economy?
Recent reports that Chancellor Rishi Sunak suggested cultural and creative workers find alternative …
