B. Units 1 & 2 (t6) - The creative economy

Task 6 - The Creative Economy 

Sectors in the Creative Industry

The creative industry is made up of 16 distinct sectors: advertising, architecture, visual art, crafts, fashion and textiles, design, performing arts, music, photography, film and video, video games, radio and TV, writing and publishing, heritage, software and electronic publishing and cultural education. These all come under the 'creative industry' umbrella. 

SOURCE - Creative industries - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Employment in the UK

According to the most recent data from late 2019, the UK employment rate was at a record high of 76.3%, so at about 49,000,000 people employed in early 2020. This has been really negatively impacted by COVID-19, especially for young workers as they are deemed 'disposable'. Altogether, job vacancies overall have been hit across all sectors, as there are 35% less than those available in 2019. More specifically, in the creative sectors, there were 5.3 million jobs, contributing to 15.7% of all UK jobs in 2019.

SOURCE - Employment in the UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)                                                               DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates 2019: Employment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Funding Generated by the Creative Industries

According to figures from 2018, the creative industries contributed an all-time-high of £224.1 billion. This is thankful to the UK’s leading digital and tech sector, which majorly contributed towards the growth of the creative sector. The creative industry was also to thank for growing jobs by 1.6% in 2018. Until now, the creative industries are shown to have been the fastest growing part of the UK economy. This is with thanks to the DCMS.  

SOURCE - Britain’s creative industries break the £100 billion barrier - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)                                    Creative Industries Federation - Growing the UK's Creative Industries.pdf

Growth of the Creative Industries

Using data from the DCMS, Digital sectors in the creative industry contributed £149 billion to UK economy in 2018, which was up 7.9% from the previous year. The Cultural sector also grew, contributing £32.3 billion in 2018, up 2.7% from 2017. There is yet to be data released from 2019/2020; however, NESTA estimates that by 2030, 900,000 new jobs in creative sectors could be created if creative industries continue to grow at the same pace (although this number may have been negatively affected as a result of the pandemic.) 

SOURCE - UK’s Creative Industries contributes almost £13 million to the UK economy every hour - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)                                                                                                                                                     Creative industries are driving economic growth across the UK, on track to create one million new creative industries jobs between 2013 and 2030 | Nesta