There are 542,470 people in the Creative & Cultural Skills workforce (i.e. people whose main paid occupation falls within the Creative & Cultural Skills footprint).

The largest sub sector is Visual, Performing and Literary Arts, which accounts for 186,580 people (34% of the total), and is closely followed by Design with 180,510 people (33%).  Sub-sectors vary greatly in the reasons behind temporary jobs: seasonality is high in Cultural heritage (41% of all temporary jobs), but tiny in Design, and non-existent in Advertising.

The proportion of staff that are part-time (23%) is very similar to the UK average (24%).  It varies by sub-sector from 12% in Design to 33% in Cultural heritage.  There are 30,300 temporary workers across the sector – 5.6% of the total.  Most (54%) are fixed contract/fixed task jobs, with a further 13% being seasonal jobs.  There are 27,410 workers across the sector in ‘secondary’ employment.

94% of Creative businesses employ 9 people or less.  There are over 62,000 creative businesses in the UK; Visual, performing and literary arts and Music are the two biggest sub sectors in terms of firms.

The sector contributes 3.7% of GVA (Gross Value Added) to the UK economy.  Productivity in the sector is just above average.  GVA per head is currently running at £34,940 compared to a UK average of £33,374.

61% of the workforce is male; this is higher than the total UK average where the male majority is 54%. The only sub sector with a (small) female majority is Cultural heritage where 52% of workers are female.  In Music only 31% are female.

95% of the sector workforce is white.  This varies little by sub-sector; the lowest proportion is 93.5% in Advertising.  This figure is only slightly higher than the UK average of 93%.  The highest proportion of ethnic minorities is in Cultural heritage, where 3.1% of workers are Black or Black British.

The workforce is young compared to the UK picture: 56% of sector workers are under 40, compared to 51% of the overall UK workforce.  Over one quarter of workers across the sector are under 30.

There are 480,150 people working in the creative and cultural industries in England, 19,000 in Wales, 36,800 in Scotland, and 6,700 in Northern Ireland.

31% of the Creative & Cultural Skills workforce is located in London, by comparison London accounts for 14% of the total UK workforce.

The only Northern region with a substantial proportion of workers is the North West, which with 9% of the workforce has the 3rd largest proportion of Creative workers. By contrast the North East has less than 4% of the total Creative workforce.

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Summary: creative and cultural industries

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