Unit 1 Task 6

The Creative Economy

The creative industry is quite a broad term. Unlike things such as the food industry, the oil industry or the retail industry, the 'creative' industry does not consist of one single aspect of business. Instead, the creative industry is made up of a number of different industries that rely on creative practices in order to function. This differs it greatly from the other and less creative industries, which commonly focus on one sole business practice to make money (e.g. the food industry focuses on food and its creation, the oil industry focuses on drilling for oil/developing the tech to get it, etc.)

But what exactly is the creative industry and how is it doing in this day and age?

Industries within the Creative Economy

When it comes to defining what exactly makes up the creative economy, we have to consider a number of different subsidiary industries, each focusing on a different creative venture that could make money. According to a paper written by the UK's Department for Culture, Media and Sport titled the Creative Industries Mapping Document 1998, there are 13 different industries that make up the creative economy:

• Advertising
• This is a creative industry that focuses on the research behind and subsequent production of advertising for a number of different other sectors throughout the business world, whether it be corporate businesses or for a specific product. This industry focuses on market research, PR campaigns and the actual production of advertisements.
  
• Art/Antiques
• This industry focuses on the reselling of various antique products of a number of different origins: antique watches, clocks, paintings, ceramics, etc. Primarily, this industry is comprised of dealers and auctioneers who want to sell off the antiques that they own for a ludicrous profit.
  
• Architecture
• The Architecture industry focuses primarily on "building design, planning approval and product information" regarding buildings and architecture created by architects. This includes houses, creative locations such as theatres or museums and so on. Anything that's classed as a building or architecture falls into this industry.
• Crafts
• The crafts industry, unsurprisingly, relates to the production and sale of products that fall under the classification of 'crafts', including but not limited to textiles and fashion, ceramics, jewellery and so on. It also relates partially to the acquisition of the raw materials required for the crafts, such as wood and clay.
• Design
• This industry is slightly more broad than some of the others, focusing on the creative design aspect of businesses. Whether this is graphic design, fashion design or even just the design of some fine art, it falls into the design industry and how something can be carefully crafted to attract a specific target demographic.
• Fashion
• The fashion industry is a rather well-known industry, focusing on the production, design and sale of clothes and fashion accessories such as shoes, dresses, jeans and so on. Slightly less well known, however, is the fashion industry's link to the consultancy work required for some fashion such as tailoring consultancy.
• Film
• 
  Yet another well known creative industry within the creative economy is the film industry, which focuses on the production, advertisement and box office sales of films of any number of different genres. This industry covers screenwriting, film production, distribution and the final exhibition of films (whether this be through the big screen or in small film festivals).
  
• Leisure Software
• Although the name may throw off some people, the leisure software industry is simply an industry that focuses on any kind of software that has been produced for leisure's sake rather than for an official purpose. More often than not, this means video/computer games. Some could consider the leisure software industry as identical to the video game industry (although in my belief, the video game industry simply falls under the leisure software umbrella).
• Music
• Another mainstream industry is the music industry, which consists of the production, sale and live performance of music. All of the work put behind creating a new piece of music, selling it to the masses and setting up a live performance for a concert falls under the music industry.
• Performing Arts
• 
  Separate from the film industry is the performing arts industry. Rather than focusing on the production of films, the performing arts industry focuses on the production and performance of live acting - this includes ballet, opera, drama, music theatre and more. This industry also focuses on the set design/creation, touring setup, lighting and sound as well.
  
• Publishing
• A slightly more dull (albeit just as important) creative industry is the Publishing industry. This industry focuses on the production of things such as books, newspapers, magazines and even some electronic publications. This industry is essential for upcoming writers and proof-readers, as their work will be essential to getting a book ready for publishing.
• Software
• The counterpart to the leisure software industry is the standard software industry, which focuses solely on the "creation, production and supply of systems, software, contract and bespoke tools and applications and software products". This industry does not include the vast majority of software that could be considered suited for leisure, as that would fall into the leisure software industry instead.
• TV/Radio
• The final industry that makes up the creative economy is the TV/Radio industry, which focuses on the broadcasting, production and sales of anything that either goes onto the TV or Radio. This includes cable television, satellite television, most news radio stations and public service TV/Radio.

Creative Employment

Unfortunately, it was extremely difficult to get any kind of employment statistics for the current year. However, I was able to find a government document from the Department for Culture, Media and Sports detailing the employment statistics of the creative industries from 2018 and how it compares to both 2017 and 2011 for comparison.

According to the 2018 DCMS Economic Estimates, the employment figures for the creative industries within the UK in 2018 was just over 2 million workers. These workers were calculated from 9 different industry categories: advertising, architecture, crafts, design/fashion, film/tv/radio, IT/software, publishing, museums and music/performing arts.

When looking more specifically at the statistics, the lowest employment rates within the creative industries were in the crafts industry, which reportedly only had 9,000 employees within the industry. This is staggering in comparison to the highest employing industry in the creative economy, the Software industry, which employed over 700,000 workers in 2018.

Additionally, it seems that the general employment figures for the creative industries are on the rise. There was a 1.6% increase in the statistics from 2017 to 2018 for all the creative industries combined, with an even greater 30.6% increase from 2011. This shows clear growth within the creative industry in terms of employment, leading me to assume that it'll still be growing (albeit slowly) to this day. The only possible thing I believe could impact the employment rates for the industries could be the pandemic, which would greatly impact the more face-to-face work such as visiting museums or going to concerts.

Creative Profits

When looking for what kind of profits the creative industries were creating yearly, it was hard to find a general estimate for how much they've produced each year. However, I was able to find some good numbers for the economic contributions from the creative economy in 2018, and can therefore correlate that with the trends of the economy at the time to determine their yearly profits.

According to a press release from the Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport, the creative industries "contributed £111.7 billion to the UK in 2018, equivalent to £306 million every day." This is a gigantic amount of profits to produce for the economy, reportedly increasing a whopping 7.4% from the previous year, indicating that the creative industries were growing five times faster than the growth of the rest of the UK economy as a whole (which only increased around 1.4%).

More specifically, it seems that a good portion of the profits for the creative industries in 2018 came from the tech service industry - which contributed £45.4 billion - and the film/TV industries which contributed £20.8 billion to the economy. The press release mentioned earlier also notes a boost from the advertising and marketing industries, which "account for a quarter of the total growth of the creative industries since 2017."

Considering these incredible contributions from 2018 and the clear growth that the industries had from 2017, it's safe to assume that the creative industries continued to grow and make similar profits in 2019 and perhaps 2020 (obviously considering the economic impacts the pandemic had across the entire UK economy). If we were to apply the same growth from 2017 to 2018, we can assume that the creative industries contributed almost £120 billion in 2019 (of course assuming that the growth rate for the creative industries stayed the exact same from 2018 to 2019).