Staff retention, AI and copyright on publishers' agenda in 2025

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A snapshot of the UK publishing workforce, published at the end of 2024, revealed that female and LGB+ representation in the industry are above the average for the UK population. But there remain challenges in recruiting and retaining Asian and British Asian staff, and in ensuring the industry hires talent from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

Other findings from the report included that the proportion of respondents living in London fell by 10 percentage points to 35 per cent between 2022 and 2024, while the proportion living in the South East rose from 21 per cent to 27 per cent.

Working with Creative Access and the Diversity Working Group, the Publishers Association has promised to focus on specific and targeted activities to support the publishing sector in these areas in 2025 and beyond.

Developments in the use of AI are also likely to feature prominently in industry discussions this year.

In December, the Publishers Association welcomed the UK government's consultation into copyright and AI as a "real opportunity for the government to get the fundamental legal underpinnings right to support AI innovation in a way that works for the economy and society, based on trustworthy, ethical, and licensed content". It has promised to "engage fully and constructively with a view to publishing being part of an economy-wide policy solution", but added that the measures being proposed were "are as yet entirely untested and unevidenced".

Separately, the Audio Publishers Group, part of the Publishers Assocation, and the Audio Publishers Association have collaborated to create international guidelines on how to label AI narrated audiobooks.

Terms for different kinds of AI narration are being used interchangeably in the marketplace, which leads to confusion among publishers, retailers and consumers.

The new guidelines have been produced in consultation with publishers, retailers, distributors and metadata providers from the US, Canada, UK and Europe. They aim to promote consistency across the industry, to give consumers clear information and allow them to make informed choices when purchasing audiobooks.The guidelines were issued as non-binding recommendations only.

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