UK creative industries make £8m an hour

By 2025 the UK will become the global ‘creative services hub’, according to the predictions of the Creative Industries Council.

Currently £8m an hour is generated by the sector that includes advertising, marketing, design and publishing, as well as architecture, arts, craft, fashion, games, music, and TV and film.

To promote the UK creative industries on a global stage, a new website has also been launched.

The website is part of industry and Government efforts to create a unified approach towards, amongst other things, digital infrastructure.

British success stories such as Burberry, enjoying a renaissance through design and advertising, are highlighted, with the Creative Industries Council hoping that 2014 will be a ‘year of creativity’, with UK creative industries taking centre stage globally.

I thought I’d round up some facts and figures from the new website about the growing importance of creative to the UK economy.

By Ben Davis January 17th 2014 17:12

Value added

Gross value added of the creative industries was £71.4bn in 2012 and accounted for 5.2% of the UK economy.

IT, software and computer services accounted for 46.5% of creative industry service exports in 2011.

Exports in the IT, software and computer services industries group increased from £5.8bn in 2009 to £6.3bn in 2010, and most recently to £7.2bn in 2011.

Case studies

The new website highlights many successful creative British endeavours such as Mind Candy, the company that produces Moshi Monsters, which is based at Tech City in London and has 80m users.

Tech City itself is cited as an example of the burgeoning creative sector in London. The silicon soundabout has seen the sale of Tweetdeck and also investment in Songkick and Huddle, just a few of the notable companies to have been based in East London.

Employment

1.68m people were employed in the creative industries in 2012, 5.6% of UK jobs. Total employment in the creative economy (employment within the creative industries plus creative jobs in other industries) was 2.55 million in 2012.

24% of the workforce is freelance.

Employment in the UK creative industries grew by 8.6% between 2011 and 2012, compared to the UK average of 0.7%.

IT, software and computer services was the largest of the groups covered, with creative employment of 791,000 in 2012.

Advertising and marketing had the largest number of creative workers employed outside of the creative industries in 2012 at 322,000.