Plan to grow creative industries by £50bn and support 1m extra jobs announced

A new long-term plan to maximise the economic potential of the UK creative industries and build a pipeline of future talent and skills has been launched.

Developed with industry via the Creative Industries Council (CIC), the Creative Industries Sector Vision is designed to build on the success of Britain's creative industries, which have grown at 1.5 times the rate of the wider UK economy over the past decade, and contribute £108bn in gross value added (GVA) annually.

Download the Creative Industries Sector Vision. You can also read some of the reactions to the plan.

The vision aims to increase GVA in the UK creative industries by £50bn and support 1m extra jobs by 2030. The announcement encompasses measures to promote investment and policies in innovative technologies, regional clusters, exports, and creative careers. They include:

• Advanced screen and performance technology research labs to be based in Yorkshire, Dundee, Belfast and Buckinghamshire with government investment and an additional £63m of industry funding

• £50m to support more regional creative clusters, plus extra cash for music venues, video games studios, London Fashion Week and future UK music talent

• Plans to build a pipeline of skills and talent through a new creative careers promise

• More funding to help start-ups scale-up and to turn creative entrepreneurs into CEOs.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the creative industries as a true British success story that "make a unique contribution to how we feel about ourselves as a country", saying: "We want to build on this incredible success to drive growth in our economy - one of my key priorities – and to ensure that UK creative industries continue to lead the world long into the future."

Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, said the government was backing the creative industries "to drive our economic growth", and as part of the measures the UK will continue to offer competitive creative industries tax reliefs to incentivise production of film, TV and video games in the UK. In 2022, the UK saw record film and high-end TV production expenditure of £6.27 billion. Inward investment, attracted by generous tax reliefs, accounted for 88 per cent of the total spend on films.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said: "This Sector Vision is about driving innovation, attracting investment and building on the clusters of creativity across the country. And from first days at school to last days of work, we will nurture the skills needed to build a larger creative workforce to harness the talent needed for continued success."

Sir Peter Bazalgette, industry co-Chair of the CIC, said: "The creative industries are coming of age with this ambitious policy framework for economic growth and cultural value. Our Sector Vision, developed jointly with government, champions R&D-led innovation and future skills, drawing on the talent of all our communities. It also promotes positive impact on health and wellbeing, the environment & Britain’s global reach. Helped by the government’s new spending commitments, the work starts now to deliver on this growth agenda."

The plan has also been welcomed by other industry CIC members, and a range of creative organisation leaders and practitioners.

The vision builds on more than £230 million in UK government spending on the creative industries since 2021, which includes £75.6 million to build the largest virtual production research and development network in Europe for advanced uses of visual effects, motion-capture technology, and AI for the screen industries and live performance.

The new announcement outlines that regional research labs in performance technology will be based in Yorkshire, Dundee and Belfast with a national lab in Buckinghamshire. The programme will be supported with an additional £63 million investment from industry.

Other key announcements cover:

• UKRI’s Convergent Screen Technologies and performance in Realtime (CoSTAR) programme is expected to create more than 820 new jobs across the UK.

• The government will invest at least £50 million in the next wave of UKRI’s Creative Industries Clusters programme. This funding will be used to identify and support at least six new clusters specialising in creative subsectors, helping entrepreneurs and businesses in these areas innovate with new technologies, secure investment, and access global markets. It comes as more than 300 creative companies across the UK receive a share of £13 million in government grants to help them innovate and reach their high growth potential.

• DCMS will increase the budget of the Create Growth Programme by £10.9 million, bringing it to a total of £28.4 million until 2025. The increased funding will enable it to double the number of regions it covers to twelve and support 2,000 businesses to commercialise their ideas and access resources, knowledge and private investment to scale up

• Funding for the Music Exports Growth Scheme, which provides grants to support touring and help emerging musicians break into new global markets, will be expanded to £3.2m over the next two years. Past recipients include BRIT award winners Wolf Alice, Dave and Catfish and the Bottlemen, as well as Mercury Prize Winners Young Fathers and BRIT Rising Star nominee beabadoobee.

• DCMS will expand Arts Council England’s highly successful Supporting Grassroots Music Venues Fund, providing an additional £5 million over two years to support around 400 grassroots music venues projects, as the lifeblood of our world-leading music sector and cornerstones of communities.

• The UK Games Fund will receive a £5 million uplift bringing its total funding to £13.4 million over the next two years. Since 2015 the fund has been developing talent and awarding grants to young video game developers and early-stage studios to turn their drawing board ideas into working prototype games and showcase them to investors. The additional funding will mean it can help maturer start-ups grow their businesses and attract even more private investment into the video games industry.

• Acknowledging UK excellence in holding international showcase events which enhance our soft power and boost creative exports, ministers have agreed new funding of £2 million will go to London Fashion Week for 2023-25 and £1.7 million for the BFI to deliver the London Film Festival 2024.

The Sector Vision’s creative careers promise commits the government to working closely with the industry to give young people from all backgrounds more opportunities to participate in creative activities from an early age, in order to build a highly-skilled, productive and inclusive creative workforce. The DCMS and Department for Education will:

• Publish the Cultural Education Plan later this year, deliver last year’s National Plan for Music Education which includes £25 million for musical instruments, and explore opportunities for enrichment activities as part of the government’s wraparound childcare provision.

• Work with industry to ensure post-16 technical skills routes work effectively for the creative industries. This will include supporting the rollout of T-Levels in creative subjects and increasing provision and take-up of high quality creative apprenticeships.

• Support lifelong learning in the creative industries and enable the sector to retain and retrain the existing workforce by working with local and regional partners to maximise the opportunities of Skills Bootcamps and to develop Local Skills Improvement Plans across England

For details of all the new funding and other measures, read the full government announcement.