Creative Sector Impact Evaluation For SELEP

The Creative Industries are central to the national re-balancing agenda, and the governments ambition to deliver private sector jobs growth.

The growth of the UK’s Creative Industries is beginning to create new challenges for the sector. Their significance transcends and goes beyond a purely economic one, and the headline economic impacts are large, growing, and; importantly out-pacing traditional sectors.

In 2015 Creative Industries in the UK added £84.1bn to the economy, equating to £9.6m per-hour -driving productivity, wages and export growth.

Areas therefore have strong incentives to support the development and growth of Creative Industries, which are not spread evenly. Those areas with strong active local clusters stand to capture and benefit from a range of direct and indirect impacts, and spill over into the wider economy.

Between 2010 and 2015 local entrepreneurs added 3,500 creative businesses to the business base in the SELEP area, growing the sector by 30.5% to reach 15,000 businesses. Creative industries in SELEP added just under 9,850 jobs to the labour market between 2009 and 2014 with growth of 25% in employment. Both growth rates are more than twice the average for the area’s business and employment performance overall.