Ahead of the government’s Spending Review, taking place on Wednesday 27 October, we submitted our recommendations on how to harness the economic potential of the creative industries.
Prior to the pandemic the creative industries contributed £115.9bn in GVA and employed 2.1 million people, with an additional one million new jobs projected by 2030. The sector was growing at four times the rate of the UK economy as a whole. New research also evidences that the true impact of the creative sector is greater still: an extra 1.4m jobs were reliant on the sector through its supply chains – a combined total of 3.5 million, or more than 1 in 10 UK jobs. The sector’s pre-pandemic economic footprint of £115.9bn multiplies to £178bn when the sector’s direct supply chains are taken into account. This means for every £1 the Creative Industries contributed directly to GVA, they generated another 50p elsewhere in the economy.
However, the creative industries have the potential to contribute even more. With the right investment, Oxford Economics projects that the sector could recover faster than the UK economy as a whole, growing by over 26% by 2025 and contributing £132.1 billion in GVA – over £28 billion more than in 2020, and more than the financial services, insurance and pension industries combined. In that same timeframe, they could create 300,000 new jobs – enough new jobs to employ the working-age population of Hartlepool and Middlesbrough twice over.
As we emerge from the impact of Covid-19, the sector’s capacity to generate wealth and create jobs will be vital for stimulating recovery across our country and communities. The power of creativity to drive innovation and help us think differently will also be essential for reshaping our future, spreading opportunity more widely and finding new solutions to tackle society’s biggest problems.
We are calling for investment into: