Manchester is the creative cluster with the third highest number of creative businesses in the UK, and has 62,972 people in creative jobs. 29% of those are employed in Film TV and Radio.
New figures from Creative England highlight the North West as one of the hotspots of creativity in the county, five creative clusters are in the region which, says the report, now accounts for 6.7% of all jobs.
Besides Manchester, Warrington and Wigan form one of the key ‘creative conurbations’ that are driving the UK creative economy, alongside the more obvious towns and cities. 7,128 people in Warrington and Wigan work in the creative industries, making it the fourth largest cluster in the North of England, while Crewe, Liverpool and Chester are identified as the other creative hotspots.
Across the UK, The creative industries are now widely recognised as a driver of UK jobs, innovation and growth, with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) showing the Gross Value Added in 2014 was £81.4 billion.
The report found that a striking feature of this picture is the explosion in entrepreneurial activity, measured by the number of creative businesses. But the concomitant is that almost all sub-sectors have experienced a reduction in average rm size: in 2007, creative businesses in the UK employed on average just under four workers; by 2014, this gure had declined by 15 per cent to 3.3.
While rapid growth has been experienced in all sub-sectors that make up the creative industries, but particularly in services activities like Design, Software and digital, and Advertising. More than half of metropolitan areas observed faster growth in the number of businesses, levels of employment and volume of turnover in these sub-sectors than in other sectors
While the figures show clearly the power of the creative industries to drive jobs and prosperity – not only in London and the South East, but in communities across the UK, there is no room for complacency and much more to be done, says Caroline Norbury MBE, Chief Executive, Creative England.
“We must work harder to spread the bene ts of London’s power as a global creative hub across the rest of the UK. We must do more to give our creative talent the opportunities and backing they need to nourish, innovate and grow wherever they come from. We must strengthen our already sophisticated creative ecosystem, so that it can continue to network across the private and public sectors, across education and across our arts, science and technology sectors.”
