Sir Peter Bazalgette
Industry Co-Chair, Creative Industries Council
“Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?” was the famous question asked by Kissinger in the 1970s. When we asked the same question of our Creative Industries (CI), until recently, there may have been a confused reply.
But this industrial sector, one of the Government’s priorities for growth, has adopted a clear agenda and is making progress towards a unified voice. Not least with the growing appreciation of its overall value: approaching 6% of the total economy1, employing 2.4 million2 and accounting for nearly 13% of the UK’s service exports.3
Diverse industries with much in common
However, compared to our other major industries, the CI (note the plural) are much more diverse: sub-sectors from Screen to Publishing, Advertising to Architecture, Music to Video Games, Design to the Arts, Fashion to Crafts.
But much unites these endeavours: the lifeblood of the whole sector is the creation and exploitation of IP; a brisk pace of R&D-led innovation at the forefront of our digital century; a fluid, dynamic preponderance of SME’s and freelancers driving creativity across subsectors. Above all, we’re the custodians of the nation’s culture — our national conversation, our values and the soft power we project to the world.
From Tower of Babel to a single voice
Our Sector Plan for Growth has defined and agreed on important objectives for all of us. Now is the time for every CI ‘influencer’ to adopt these important policies and speak with a single voice: one sector, albeit with rich diversity. These policies are better access to finance for IP-owning SME’s; greater investment in R&D-led innovation; a future-facing skills agenda for our rapidly changing digital businesses; a clear plan to spread investment across the 55 creative clusters already thriving in the UK;4 a strategic focus on CI exports; and a fruitful regime for IP that harnesses AI without being destroyed by it.
We have our policy forum with the Government: The Creative Industries Council. We have our sector advocate: Creative UK. Talk to us and take part in our exciting future.
References:
1. DCMS. (2026). DCMS sectors economic estimates gross value added 2024 (provisional). https://tinyurl.com/36uxkm39.
2. DCMS. (2025). DCMS sector economic estimates: employment, January 2024 to December 2024. https://tinyurl.com/bddhrhnt.
3. DCMS. (2025). DCMS sectors economic estimates: trade, 2022 and 2023 – main report. https://tinyurl.com/yta4pphx.
4. Frontier Economics. (2022). Understanding the growth potential of creative clusters. https://tinyurl.com/5e3hkk5f.
