The Shape of Creative Industries in the UK 2024

It is well known that the creative industries in the UK are in poor shape financially, just ask anyone trying to make a living from them. But it needn’t be so. The creative industries give people the freedom to imagine a life beyond the one they’re currently living, they add richness to people’s existing quality of life, provide jobs and diversity and so on. Far from being the waste of time and money or the luxury which our government perceives them to be, art and creativity are essential to mental health and wellbeing and can be a driver of economic growth.

This week, Rehana Mughal, director of creative economy at the British Council, gave an interview to Publishing Perspectives detailing some of the ways in which the creative industries are being supported by the government and providing suggestions for how that might be expanded. Her interview gave a swift walk-through of different types of funding and support, coming from the national or company level perspective. These include tax relief which is available in the UK for various industries, including film, children’s television, animation and so on. She also spoke about the areas in which governments should focus their efforts to expand the creative industries, namely “research that pushes at the edge of what the future could bring to the creative sector”.

Her interview didn’t cover the publishing industry specifically, but referenced the government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision which sets out the government’s aims for investment and development of the creative industries between now and 2030. On the face of it, it is an encouraging document. In his foreword, Rishi Sunak states that “I’m personally committed to the success of the creative industries – and so is the government I lead….Our ambition is nothing less than to grow the creative industries by an extra £50 billion while creating one million extra jobs by 2030.” He talks about national initiatives. It is notable, however, that even in a document about vision for the creative industries, he is talking about expanding compulsory maths teaching to the age of eighteen and mentions video games and television by name, but fails to talk about writing, theatre, art, dance and so on. His mind, as ever, is on money, global image and technology.

This is a pattern which is repeated throughout the document. Whilst the writing and publishing industry may benefit from some of the schemes laid out in the vision plan, it is hard to find a single mention of it anywhere. The focus throughout is on technology and entrepreneurship, which may be no bad thing, but it leaves out any reference to the contribution of writing, publishing, art, theatre and dance to the UK economy. It makes no reference the impact those industries make globally as an global export. Neither is there any mention of supporting individual artists, actors or writers, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds who are trying to break into the industry. Whilst the companies and initiatives covered in the document may in turn help individuals, there is no acknowledgement of the fact that what artists of all types need at grassroots level is pay and support to break into competitive industries which all rely on unpaid work done by volunteers, interns and emerging artists, meaning that success is weighted towards those with the wherewithal to do that unpaid work, at least in the initial stages of their careers.

It is hard to see the document as anything other than a cover-up for the gaping holes in government policy when it comes to the creative industries. At our universities, the humanities subjects are suffering and in some cases being completely cut – see Goldsmiths and Oxford Brookes University amongst several others – reducing the numbers of skilled individuals entering the creative industries as well as diminishing the profile of arts subjects nationally. Meanwhile, music teacher numbers in secondary schools have fallen by over 1,000 in the last ten years and GCSE music entries have fallen by 20%. The number of students taking English at A Level has also reduced from 74,000 in 2017 to 58,000 in 2021. The situation isn’t all bleak, though, as the number of people employed in book publishing in the UK has risen in recent years from 46,000 in 2014, to a peak of 59,000 in 2022 and revenue from the publishing industry has also grown steadily in recent years. All of which suggests that the government is making a mistake in focussing its vision for creative development on newer technologies to the neglect of the more traditional, tried and tested creative industries.