“creative industries remain a strong and dynamic component of London’s economy, accounting for nearly one London job in every twelve”
London’s creative workforce (February 2010) report from the GLA confirms that London and its surrounds remain the dominant focus for the UK’s creative industries.
Thirty-two per cent of the creative workforce is located in London, and over 58 per cent in the Greater South East. The nine DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) creative industries remain a strong and dynamic component of London’s economy, accounting for nearly one London job in every twelve. Together with creative workers outside these industries, they account for more than one London job in every six.
The nine creative industries defined by DCMS are:
- Advertising
- Architecture
- Arts and Antiques
- Fashion
- Film and Video
- Leisure Software
- Music and the Visual and Performing Arts
- Publishing
- Radio and Television
Since peaking in 2001, total creative employment fell for three successive years before turning up in 2005. This gave rise to a concern that the rising trend of creative industry employment and output shown in the late 1990s could be coming to an end. This report confirms that both employment and output had by 2007 risen above their 2001 peak, suggesting that there is underlying growth.
Creative Workforce Jobs, as measured in this report, are made up of two components which overlap:
- ‘Creative Industry Jobs’ – jobs in an industry classified as creative. These are the sum of creative industry employee jobs and creative industry self-employed jobs. There are 386,000 of them.
- ‘Creative Jobs’ – held by artists, performers, craft workers and so on – whose occupation is classified as creative. There are 599,000 of these, of which 411,000 are outside the creative industries.
188,000 creative industry jobs are also creative jobs. These are only counted once, so London has 386,000 + 411,000 = 797,000 creative workforce jobs.
Not only do the UK’s creative industries tend to concentrate in London and the South East, but that they have a distinct pattern of location within London itself. The high-density areas can be thought of as those which specialise in the creative industries.
The full report can be found at legacy.london.gov.uk/mayor/economic_unit/docs/wp40.pdf
Trevor Bottomley
Employment & Labour Market Adviser
Central London Connexions
May 2010