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Creative industries worth £10m an hour to UK economy

New figures released by the government this week have underlined the important role the UK’s creative industries play for the country’s economy.

Estimates put together by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport show that British film, media, music and arts, among many other creative industries, contributed a combined total of £84.1bn to the UK economy. The figure makes up almost 5.2% of the UK’s economy as a whole.

In the figures, the creative industries were shown to have produced almost £10m in Gross Value Added (GVA) for every hour of 2014. A rise of 8.9% compared to the previous year.

The number also outstripped the average rise of 4.6% across the economy, the fourth consecutive year in which the creative industries have outpaced the GVA of other areas of the economy.

Specific creative industries that have shown the most growth over the same period included Advertising and marketing (10.9%), architecture (16.4%) and design (16.6%) which all performed strongly.

The statistics also underline the economic and cultural importance of the creative industries as a British export, with figures collated for 2013 valuing the exporting of creative services at £17.9bn; accounting for nearly 9% of country’s total exports.

Minister for Culture, Ed Vaizey, lauded the global success of the UK’s creative industries when he said: “The creative industries are one of the UK’s greatest success stories, with British musicians, artists, fashion brands and films immediately recognisable in nations across the globe.”

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