The creative industries make a significant contribution to the UK economy, but their future growth will depend on how well policy unlocks creative value, supports firms and places, and opens routes into creative work.
The UK’s creative industries are one of the Government’s eight key Industrial Strategy sectors, generating around £124 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2023, equivalent to around 5.2% of total UK GVA – and supporting around 2.4 million jobs from July 2023 to June 2024 (Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), 2025).
But their economic strength is not evenly distributed. In Understanding growth in the creative industries: National trends and firm-level evidence from Creative UK, Burcu Sevde Selvi examines how creative activity is measured, where growth is concentrated, and what firm-level evidence reveals about finance, innovation and participation.
The analysis shows that the sector’s measured economic value is concentrated in a few large subsectors, including IT, software and computer services, advertising and marketing, and film, TV, radio and photography. Other areas, such as museums, galleries, libraries, crafts and parts of the performing arts, may generate wider cultural, educational and social value that is less visible in standard economic measures.
Geography also matters. Creative employment is spread across the UK, but creative GVA remains more concentrated, particularly in London and the South East. This pattern reflects not only where creative activity takes place, but also where firms have access to finance, infrastructure, specialist labour and institutional networks.
The study also highlights the limits of standard industrial classifications. Creative workers are employed across many parts of the economy, while creative inputs can be embedded in supply chains, digital services, design, branding and cross-sector work. This means that official categories remain useful, but cannot fully capture how creative value is produced and circulated.
Firm-level evidence from Creative UK’s Creative Growth Finance portfolio adds a more detailed business perspective. Although the sample is small and not representative of the wider creative economy, it shows how supported firms vary by region, subsector and growth trajectory. The analysis points to the importance of specialist finance for creative SMEs, particularly where firms rely on intangible assets, project-based production and non-standard growth paths.
Digital technologies and artificial intelligence are also reshaping the conditions for creative growth. The opportunities are significant, but the benefits are unlikely to be evenly distributed without attention to skills, intellectual property, workforce support, and the position of freelancers and smaller firms.
The report identifies five areas for policy development: place-based investment for smaller and emerging creative ecosystems; stronger links between national, regional, occupational and firm-level data; AI adoption aligned with creative workforce support; better coordination between finance, skills and innovation policy; and clearer, more accessible entry routes into creative work.
Burcu Sevde Selvi, author of the report, said:
“The creative industries make a significant contribution to the UK economy, but their full value is not always visible in standard measures or evenly supported across firms, places and people. Supporting long-term growth means improving measurement, targeting finance more effectively, strengthening place-based support, and making entry routes into creative work clearer and more accessible.”
By connecting national trends with firm-level evidence, the study offers a more detailed picture of how creative businesses grow and what kinds of support may be needed as the sector takes a central place in the UK’s Industrial Strategy.
Read the report: Understanding growth in the creative industries: National trends and firm-level evidence from Creative UK
Read the news article: Beyond headline growth: rethinking the UK’s creative industries
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
