Key statistics:

• 39% of the creative workforce hold a level five qualification.
• 45% of the total creative and cultural workforce have a degree level qualification.
• 23% of the workforce have a GCSE or Vocational GCSE as their highest qualification.
• Only 10.9% of employers report the recruitment difficulties are the result of applicants lacking the appropriate qualifications.
• The sector is expecting to recruit people with higher qualifications in the future across all roles especially creative, account management, and management.

Source: Understanding Supply 2007

Source: Understanding Supply 2007, table 236.

For more information on the qualification level of the workforce by sub-sector see:

The creative and cultural sectors are certainly well-supplied when it comes to courses – there are over 180,000 of them.  At further and higher education level, there are approximately 30,000 course providers and over half a million students. Some course providers have said there are too many courses available when compared with the level of job opportunities that exist across the sectors.

With such a high proportion of students studying courses, there is an over-supply of students – not all students will go onto employment within their sector.

In the cultural heritage sector for example, less than 2% of cultural heritage graduates are employed in core cultural heritage activities. 25% of ‘cultural heritage’ graduates took a job where their qualification was not required, only 6% took a position where a degree was formally required. (museums, and other cultural activities). Although a further 4.4% work in government which is likely to include workers in local authority museums, conservation officers and related posts. This is still less than 7% of such graduates.  Almost as many archaeologists studied politics (12.8%) as studied archaeology (13.8%) before entering the profession.

Undergraduate degrees within parts of the creative and cultural sector could be seen to lack relevance by prospective employers because so few graduates will ultimately pursue careers in the sector. Therefore, the practical skills and detailed  understanding required in jobs were not demanded by the majority of students.

There are over 700,000 people studying a creative or cultural course in the UK, at Further Education, Higher Education and on Work Based Learning.

Source: Understanding Supply 2007

For more information on higher education qualifications achieved across the sector see:

With the sectors constantly evolving, the need for Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is on-going. However, as many people working within the creative and cultural sectors are either freelance or soletraders, it’s not always possible for them to undertake training as they could lose income by doing so. Perhaps not surprisingly therefore, the larger the employer, the more likely they are to arrange training for their employees.

Key statistics:

• It should be noted that larger businesses tend to employ a greater selection of training methods.
• 32% of creative organisations have arranged training in the last year.
• 89% of training takes place outside office hours.
• 89% of businesses in the UK have no training budget.
• 12% of businesses fund training with funds from another organisation.
• The variance between the home nations in the proportion of practitioners accessing funding; from approximately one third in England and Scotland to just under half in Wales, to only 4% in Northern Ireland.

Source: Understanding supply 2007

For more data on training types and methods, funding and annual budgets for training see:

Across the UK, 87% of organisations in the sector do not have a training budget while 60% of businesses in the arts sector in general arranged for training in 2005/06.  The investigation of use of education and training revealed that employers and practitioners tend to use external training in order to fill skills gaps.  Additionally, where practitioners do make use of informal or internal training this seems to be because of a lack of access to external training.

A key impact on the type of training undertaken is the size of the business – in general, larger businesses tend to employ a greater selection of training methods.

With high and growing numbers of self-employed/freelancers and an industry characterised by low pay and portfolio working, time, cost and resources present major barriers to freelancers in accessing training.

Less than 20% of employers across the arts in general were aware that they can access funding for training, while, of those that were aware 70% chose not to access this funding.  86% of training in the sector took place during office hours.

Despite the perceived benefits of training and skills development, there are a number of barriers to undertaking this development, specifically:

• the lack of suitable training provision
• the financial implications
• the disruption at work

The common concerns on barriers to training are the lack of suitable provision and lack of knowledge of available provision.  The following figure shows how the creative and cultural sector compares to the other Sector Skills Councils employers.

Sources: Gap Analysis and Market Testing 2007 and IFF Research Ltd. 2005

For more information on what employers rate as barriers to developing skills see:

Across the UK, there are 180,000 courses at Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) level, and 700,000 students at students at FE/HE.  FE Colleges overlap with the HE sector – Universities and the equivalent. 

An interesting feature of the training landscape is that in England, at Level 4, the number of Vocationally Related Qualifications in creative subject’s drops significantly.

The industry heavily leans toward graduate and postgraduate intake, and yet those individuals lack the right skills to be successful in their chosen careers.  The industry also relies on a core of work-based learning, ad hoc training, informal training and a vocational preference for skills development.

Business, management, leadership and professional skills need to be developed specific to the industry.  Currently there are few available courses that reference cultural leadership, or business management for the creative industries

Source: Gap Analysis and Market Testing 2007

In many cases the sector is not perceived as a viable career option, that routes into the industry are opaque and that people work because they have a passion for creativity, rather than to earn a living.

Entry into the sector, occupational routes and career progression, and knowledge around business growth in innovative small organisations is not clear.

There is a tradition of volunteering as a formal route in to employment in the sector.  Consequently, the workforce is predominately white and middle class.  The history of low pay/voluntary routes into the sector excludes those that cannot afford to support themselves whilst they get established.

Across the sector, learning through experience is a key feature and few occupations can be successfully entered fully trained by education.  Many sub-sectors note the (potential) value of apprenticeships.  Entry routes and progression in the sub-sectors follow: