Uplifting the UK's creative industries

The UK’s creative industries are world-leading, contributing £125 billion to our economic growth. That’s more than oil and gas, automotive and pharmaceuticals combined. Millions of people work across the sector, producing creative assets that can add significant value to our lives. So, is the sector receiving optimal support to continue this trajectory? Dr Josh Siepel and team are using experimental methods to paint a picture of the UK’s creative industry landscape. 

Mapping the UK’s creativity 

I’ve been researching the geography of the UK’s creative industries – where they are based, the barriers to growth they face, and how different sectors are developing. In our Geographies of Creativity report, we used the latest data to map all creative businesses and organisations across the nation and found some interesting insights. An accurate understanding of where businesses are and how they work in local areas can help policymakers to provide optimal support for developing different areas and address the UK’s persistent regional inequalities. 

All eyes on London? 

As a world-leading, cultural and financial powerhouse, London’s dominant position is a given. London and the South-East contribute nearly 70% of the industries’ total economic outputs. This is the UK’s only “supercluster” due to its strength in attracting investment, talent and infrastructure, and huge economic outputs for the industry. But its dominance isn’t the start and end of the story. The creative industries have a role to play in addressing regional inequality, and high-calibre creativity and innovation can be found across the nation - so what’s the full picture of the sector’s growth today?  

Rise of creative hotspots

Businesses benefit from being based near each other. It can enable collaboration, knowledge sharing and productive competition that could encourage innovation. While we often think of benefits of being in the same city, our research has shown that within cities, towns and rural areas, there are creative hotspots of activity, serving as hubs of innovation and driving growth. From the Production Park complex in Wakefield, where Beyonce, Ed Sheeran and Coldplay have practiced their tour production to the businesses and freelancers in Brighton’s North Laine fusing creative skills and technology, these “microclusters” are groups of 50 or more businesses and organisations in close proximity to one another. Our research has identified 709 of these microclusters across the UK, and our research has suggested that they have the potential to be the engines of growth for the creative industry.  

Between 2019 and 2022, 77% of net job creation across the entire sector took place in microclusters, and these growth rates were especially high in Scotland, the North East, the North West and the South West, as well as London – South-East. This means that creative industries growth isn’t solely based in the nation’s supercluster. 

Overcoming barriers to growth

Microclusters have distinct needs required to support their development. Our research shows that creative businesses in microclusters – particularly those outside of the largest cities - are more likely to perceive access to finance as a barrier to their growth, even though businesses in these clusters may be more likely to want to grow. Companies face a range of other barriers, from access to skills and customers to barriers around infrastructure.

Making the link: corridors to support creative clusters 

A potential way to better connect more dispersed creative clusters lies in the “creative corridor” concept, which refers to regions where there are close linkages across a broader geographical area. Arguably the most famous example of this is Silicon Valley, which stretches over a large area but produces disproportionate innovation and economic returns. In the UK creative industries context, we argue there’s already one of these in London and the South East. But our research is trying to identify how this concept can be applied to help drive growth of creative industries in other parts of the UK as well.

Our analysis suggests the potential of 7 creative corridors across the UK. One example is One Creative North, previously known as the Northern Creative Corridor. The idea is that building linkages between creative businesses across the cities and towns of Northern England may help to strengthen connections and increase market size to rival London and the South East. Our analysis suggests that companies in microclusters in the North of England had many similar characteristics to businesses in London, in terms of innovation, use of skills and access to customers. We also found that businesses in the North are more likely to sell to other parts of the UK, unlike London for example, which gets a substantial amount of turnover from other London-based trade. This suggests potential for developing North-to-North creative supply chains.  

Frameworks to support growth 

Through this research, we’re trying to build a more unified framework of understanding where and how creative industries can be supported to grow, wherever they’re based. Our experimental methods push the boundaries of existing geographies, providing a detailed picture of the state of the UK’s creative industries. It’s fantastic to see our research mentioned in government outputs, like the new government’s strategy for the creative industries, and we hope to inform policymakers and stakeholders with informative data to help optimise support going forwards. 

Photo credit: Cdel