Economic contribution

HOW FASHION FUELS THE UK ECONOMY

The direct contribution of the UK fashion industry - including fashion suppliers and retailers as well as designers - to the UK economy was estimated at £32.3bn in 2017 according to data from Oxford Economics, the consultancy, published by the British Fashion Council.

The source estimates that fashion supports 890,000 jobs - up 1.8 per cent on 2016.
Womenswear value sales grew by 2.9 per cent in 2017 to £28.1bn, are predicted to reach £28.7bn by 2021, according to Mintel. Menswear accounts for 26 per cent of the total clothing market and grew by 3.5 per cent in 2017.
According to a 2017 Mintel report, online fashion accounts for 24 per cent of total fashion spend.
Chinese tourists collectively are the biggest spenders in the UK luxury fashion market.

Source: BFC Press Release Facts & Figures , February & September 2018.

Economic Value - official statistics

In the Government's official statistics on the creative industries, published in December 2020 for the period of 2019, the economic contribution (Gross Value Added) of the fashion industry is partly accounted for in the category of "design and designer fashion". In this category, GVA was estimated at £3.6bn at current prices in 2019.

Using the metric of chained volume measures to compare figures across years, the GVA of the design and designer fashion category was estimated to have increased by 103 per cent between 2010 and 2019.

The DCMS Economic Estimates also calculate there were 171,000 UK jobs in design and designer fashion in 2019.

There were also an estimated 23,400 UK businesses in the category in 2017, increasing by almost 3 per cent year on year.

Source: DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates, GVA, December 2020; DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates, Employment,June 2019;

Creative Industries Economic Estimates - Business Demographics, DCMS, January 2019.

EXPORTS of Services

According to data published by the DCMS, exports of services from the design and designer fashion category were worth £461m in 2017. (Note: these figures are likely to under-estimate the value of exports in this category and conflict with other estimates of the value of exports from UK design and fashion businesses).