February 10, 2020

New government figures show the country’s successful creative industries contributed £111.7 billion to the UK in 2018, equivalent to £306 million every day. This is up 7.4% on the previous year, meaning that growth in the sector is more than five times larger than growth across the UK economy as a whole, which increased by 1.4%.

The Government says that the sector was supported by large contributions from tech services and the film and television industries, which contributed £45.4 billion and £20.8 billion to the economy respectively. Another boost was delivered by the advertising and marketing industries, which account for a quarter of the total growth of the creative industries since 2017.

As a whole, the Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) Sectors (excluding Tourism) contributed £224.1 billion to the UK in 2018, accounting for 11.7% of the economy. Headline figures include:

• the Digital Sector contributed £149 billion to the UK in 2018, accounting for 7.7% of the UK economy. This contribution is up 7.9% on the previous year, meaning growth in the sector is nearly six times larger than growth across the economy as a whole, which increased by 1.4%; and
• the Cultural Sector contributed £32.3 billion to the UK economy in 2018, up 2.7% from the previous year. The sub-sector Film, TV and Music made up three fifths of this sector (£21.3 billion).

The full DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates 2018 report can be found here.