Creative Economy

NEWS: Creative industries add more than £100bn to UK

updated

March 2, 2021

Published on:

January 7, 2019

January 5, 2021

Creative Industries Add More Than £100bn to UK

The creative industries contributed a record £101.5bn to the UK economy in 2017, official statistics show.

The contribution of the UK creative industries - as measured by Gross Value Added (GVA) - rose by 7.1 per cent in 2017 - much faster than the 4.8 per cent growth across the UK economy as a whole.

The figures, which are provisional, mean the UK's creative industries contributed more than £278m a day, or approximately £11.5m in every hour of 2017.

Between 2010 and 2017, the creative industries sub sectors - which include advertising, film and TV, architecture, publishing, music, design, games, museums and galleries, fashion, crafts, and the creative use of technology - grew GVA by 53.1 per cent.

This is also the fastest growth rate of any of the categories overseen by the Department of Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, which has responsibility for areas including tourism, telecoms, gambling and charities, and makes the creative industries among the best performing of any industrial sectors.

In total, the UK creative industries employ almost 2m people in the UK, with a further 1m employed in creative jobs in the wider economy, and exports of creative services rose to £27bn in 2016.

Creative Industries Nov 2018 data table — **(Above: Growth rates across creative sub-sectors. Source:** **DCMS, Nov 2018)**

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Much of the growth in the creative industries is thought to be coming from the emerging field known as CreaTech which is built on the interplay of creativity and technology.

This area includes immersive technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality as well as creatively-driven implementations of artificial intelligence, 3D printing and haptic technologies- all areas in which both the creative and technological elements are essential to the service, product or experience.

The UK is also maintaining its ability to produce internationally successful creative talent in established sectors such as music, as demonstrated by the breakout success of acts such as Rag'n'Bone, pictured below.