'Powerhouse' creative industries generate £8m per hour for UK economy, government report says
Employment in the creative industries is increasing at a higher rate than any other sector in the UK economy, new figures released from the department of culture, media and sport have revealed.
Report: Maria Miller said the creative industries were a 'powerhouse'
The creative industries, which include advertising, marketing, design, and publishing, accounted for 1.68m jobs in 2012 - 5.6 per cent of all jobs in the UK - while employment between 2011 and 2012 increased by 8.6 per cent. As a whole, the report estimated that the creative industries generated £8m per hour for the UK economy.
The wider creative economy, which encompasses jobs related to the creative industries, accounted for one in 12 jobs in the UK in 2012, 2.55 million in total, with IT, software and computer service names as the largest creative economy group.
The sector accounted for around 791,000 creative employment jobs (11.6 per cent) in 2012, an increase of 82,000 on the previous year. Of that number, 558,000 were employed within the creative industries.
However, in the advertising and marketing industries, employment was down by 2.8 per cent in 2012 from 147,000 to 143,000. The design industry saw employment growth of 16.2 per cent, while employment in the publishing industry was up by 7.5 per cent.
The secretary of state for culture, media and sport, Maria Miller, said: “These incredible statistics are confirmation that the creative industries consistently punch well above their weight, outperforming all the other main industry sectors, and are a powerhouse within the UK economy.
“We are committed to ensuring that the energy, innovation, skills and talent existing in this dynamic sector continues to translate into economic success, and provide a remarkable platform from which, we can showcase Britain to the world.”
Meanwhile, Gross Value Added (GVA) for the creative industries was up to £71.4bn in 2012 and accounted for 5.2 per cent of the UK economy, an increase of 15.6 per cent since 2008, and more than 10 per cent higher than the 5.4 per cent GVA for the UK economy as a whole.
Despite the drop in employment in the advertising and marketing industries, GVA in the sector rallied between 2010 and 2012.
The report stated: “The advertising and marketing group had the largest increase in GVA between 2011 and 2012 (26.3 per cent). In the two years between 2008 and 2010, GVA for advertising and marketing fell from £8.3bn in 2008 to £6.8bn in 2010. However, between 2010 and 2012 the group recovered to higher than its 2008 level, and by 2012 GVA of this group was £10.2bn.”
The figures follow a report by marketing recruiter EMR that showed average marketing wages had increased by 5.6 per cent as marketing spend reached a 13-year high.