The UK’s creative industries claw in more than £8m an hour for the British economy, with advertising and marketing leading the way, according to the Creative Industries Council, a government funded body.
The Council, which is looking for 2014 to be the “year of creativity”, groups together an number of sectors – including advertising, marketing, design and publishing, as well as architecture, arts, craft, fashion, games, music, and TV and film – is launching a new online hub to promote the UK creative industries on a global stage.
Part of industry and Government efforts to create a united front , the site highlights many successful creative British endeavours such as Mind Candy, the company that produces Moshi Monsters, which is based at Tech City in London and has 80 million users.
Gross value added of the creative industries was £71.4bn in 2012 and accounted for 5.2% of the UK economy, while IT, software and computer services accounted for 46.5% – some £7.2bn – of creative industry service exports in 2011.
Some 1.68 million people were employed in the creative industries in 2012, 5.6% of UK jobs. Total employment in the creative economy (employment within the creative industries plus creative jobs in other industries) was 2.55 million in 2012.
Meanwhile, advertising and marketing had the largest number of creative workers employed outside of the creative industries in 2012 at 322,000.
